


7 Ways

by 13luckystars



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: All of these pranks are really dumb, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, I'm Sorry, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pranks, Warning: Mentions of Canon Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-02-10
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13luckystars/pseuds/13luckystars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Stiles goes off to college, he doesn't expect to get a roommate that he doesn't like. Of course the natural response to his new roommate is to try his best to make his roommate's life miserable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Everyone said that college was going to be a good experience. Going to school for higher education in a town two hours away from home was supposed to be a good experience. Everyone said that it would teach Stiles responsibility and that he would enjoy it. From listening to everyone talk, he had begun to agree with them. He had started thinking that maybe moving out from Beacon Hills and into a college dorm room with someone he didn’t know would be nice. It turned out, everyone was wrong. As soon as Stiles got to his dorm room and put everything on the empty bed in the room, he met his roommate, and his roommate was an absolute polar opposite from himself, and he hated the guy.

The guy walked into the room from the bathroom with no shirt on, sporting six pack abs. He was talking on his cell phone, balancing it between his face and shoulder, to who Stiles assumed was his girlfriend. The guy probably wouldn’t have annoyed Stiles as much if the first thing out of his mouth wasn’t , “I’m not exactly looking forward to meeting my roommate. It would’ve been a lot better in a single room, and who the hell goes by the name Stiles? If my parents had named me that, I would’ve demanded everyone call me something else.”

Stiles cleared his throat, relishing in the look of surprise he received when his roommate noticed him, and said, “Stiles isn’t my real name, it’s just what I prefer to go by.”

If it had been anyone else, they probably would have apologized or at least looked a little sheepish, this guy just shrugged and returned to his conversation. And he didn’t even change the subject.

“I’ve now been told that my roommates name is something worse than Stiles, if you can imagine that, and Stiles is just what he likes to be called.” The guy looked over to where Stiles was standing, “Who the hell would choose to be called Stiles?”

Stiles shook his head, attempting to keep in his frustration, and turned back to unpacking his stuff. He had to put sheets on his bed and he really wasn’t sure how to do it. When his mom had been alive, she had always done it for him, and then when it was just him and his dad, his dad started doing for him. This was the first time that he had ever felt as if he had been coddled as a child. 

The entire time Stiles was unpacking, his roommate, who he now wished he had found out what his name is, continued to talk on his phone. Stiles could feel the other boy’s eyes on his back when he turned around, and definitely felt as if he was being judged. He wanted to turn around and yell that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how to make his own bed and that he was trying as hard as he could. In the end, he got everything on the bed the best he could, and left the room to figure out where everything else was.

...

“I don’t even know his name Scott and he’s already a huge asshole.”

“You’re probably just over exaggerating,” Scott said through the phone.

“When I walked in he was talking to someone on the phone about me and said that he wasn’t looking forward to meeting me.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah Scott, how am I supposed to survive in this room? I can already tell he’s one of those popular, jock types. He probably doesn’t do his homework and puts whatever sport he likes and whatever girl he’s banging first. I can’t live in the same dorm room as a failure Scott, I will not do it.”

Scott started laughing. “You’re definitely over exaggerating dude, maybe he is popular and he likes playing sports. That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t do his school work.”

“What if he’s like Jackson? What if he expects everyone to think he’s the shit and thinks everyone loves him and is just going to make my life hell for the rest of the school year?”

“It’s your first day in that room Stiles, calm down.”

“How’s your school life going?” Stiles asked, knowing that the moment he asked the question Scott’s face would erupt in a large grin.

“Great, I still can’t believe I got into the school.”

“You mean you can’t believe you got into the same school as Allison?”

“Yeah dude,” Stiles imagines Scott getting a dreamy look on his face, “I still get to see her every day and now her dad isn’t around to harass me so it’s kind of like before he even found out about us dating.”

“Good for you buddy,” Stiles says but he doesn’t quite feel the meaning behind it. He knows that Scott won’t hear anything off about the statement, but Stiles himself doesn’t believe what he just said. Sure he loves Allison and wants Scott to be happy, but it’s times like these when Stiles feels the most like the third wheel. As soon as Allison entered the picture it went from Scott and Stiles to Scott and Allison and sometimes Stiles. 

“I wish you were at this school too though,” Scott says. 

Stiles can practically hear the dream-like, Allison-induced state being ripped away. “Yeah, I do too, but this place has the program that I want.”

“That doesn’t mean I miss you any less.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, don’t turn all mushy on me Scott.”

Scott laughed. “I guess I’m going to try to get my man-card back after that one huh?”

“How many romantic comedies have you watched with Allison since I left?”

“I don’t know, what does that have to do with anything?”

“But you have watched them?”

“Yes, she likes them so I watch them with her.”

“And how many guy movies have you watched?”

Scott paused. “Uh, actually, I can’t remember the last one I watched.”

“Sounds like you lost your man-card a long time ago Scotty boy.”

Scott groaned. “I’m supposed to watch another one with her tonight.”

“You might want to pick a movie yourself sometime. It’s better than what I have to look forward to.”

“Just try to get to know him, maybe he’s a better guy than you think.”

Stiles sighed, knowing that Scott was right and hating it. “You always have to be disgustingly moral about things don’t you?”

“It’s something I pride myself with,” Scott said and Stiles imagined a smirk on the other boy’s face. “I should probably go now, Allison will be here soon and I have to try to convince my roommate that he should leave.”

“Alright, good luck with that.”

After saying their goodbyes, both boys hung up and Stiles headed back to his dorm room after wandering the campus for a good hour and a half.

…

When Stiles got back to his dorm his roommate was no longer on the phone. The other boy was stretched across his own bed, hands linked over his chest. He gave the image that he was asleep, so Stiles walked in carefully, at the same time wanting and not wanting to wake the other boy. He was trying hard to take Scott’s annoyingly accurate advice and to not piss off his roommate on the first day.

“I wondered when you would come back,” the other boy said, not moving a muscle. If it wasn’t for the fact that Stiles had been looking at his roommate when he had started talking, he could have thought he had imagined the words.

“I had to come back eventually,” Stiles said, deciding that that couldn’t seem too rude.

His roommate opened his eyes, looking Stiles in the eyes, but otherwise not moving. “I’m Derek by the way, and I’m sorry for earlier.”

“You already know my name.”

“I know the name that you go by, why do you go by Stiles and not your real name?”

“Because my real name is an atrocious monstrosity that no one can pronounce. It’s easier for everyone if they just call me Stiles.”

“Then what is your real name?”

“That is not something that I am going to tell you.”

Stiles wasn’t sure how the other boy reacted because as soon as the inevitable question was out of his mouth, Stiles turned away. Too many times people had asked that same question, and too many times Stiles had had to tell them the same thing. No one ever understood why Stiles didn’t want to tell people his real name. His parents hadn’t understood when people had actually started asking them when he wouldn’t tell and his teachers never understood when they went to call his name for attendance and he would stop them before they even got to his name. 

When Stiles turned around, Derek still hadn’t moved, and wasn’t looking at Stiles anymore. It seemed like all of their conversation was done. Stiles didn’t think anything of it when he turned to leave the room, maybe to do some more exploring, maybe to go get some sort of food, but Derek seemed to. Stiles was just walking out the door when Derek called out to him.

“Where are you going?” the other male asked.

Stiles turned around, confused look on his face since he didn’t really know why Derek cared. “Uh, I thought I’d go get food or something?”

“Why?”

“So I can eat?”

Derek picked his wallet up from where it had been resting on the bedside table. Without looking at Stiles he threw some money at the other boy. “Could you pick me up something?”

Stiles picked the money up from the floor, annoyed at the fact that Derek had really tried throwing money. “Yeah sure, what do you want?”

“I’ll eat anything.”

Stiles felt another unnecessary flare of annoyance and walked out of the room. If Derek didn’t like what he was going to get him, it wasn’t Stiles’ problem.

…

“I tried Scott I really, really did.”

“What did you try?”

“I tried out your disgustingly moral plan and tried to get to know him.”

“Stiles, it hasn’t even been an hour.”

“And it just isn’t working out. I need to go get a new roommate.”

Scott sighed. “You really don’t. Why don’t you just try to annoy him back?”

“What do you mean?”

“Prank him or something, do something to get on his nerves.”

Stiles stopped, not even thinking about the fact that he’s standing in the middle of the hallway. “Dude, that is a great idea.”

“I get them occasionally.”

“I am totally doing this thanks Scott.”

Before Scott could say anything else, Stiles had disconnected the phone. He now knew what he was going to do to Derek. There was a small part of him saying that he had just met the guy, that there was no reason to be so rude, but that was squashed by the part of Stiles that thought this was a great idea. Thinking that he would just head to get food, take it back to Derek, and go to the library to figure out what to do to Derek exactly, Stiles walked with an extra pep in his step.

So Stiles did what he was asked to do. He took Derek his stupid food that he secretly wished the other boy would hate. He gave Derek back his change and went right back out the door. This time, when Stiles left, Derek didn’t say anything. That might have been since his girlfriend was in the room. Stiles didn’t take a good look at her but figured she was probably popular and was probably a cheerleader. Stiles just guessed that was Derek’s type.

The library was pretty much empty when Stiles got there. There were a few people roaming around the quiet place, but not many. For the most part, all Stiles saw through the time he was there was the little librarian helping him figure out the computer, the large shelves full of books, and the random straggler. Since the school year hadn’t even started yet, Stiles hadn’t figured there would be many people. He imagined what the library would look like in a few weeks, and even closer to exam time. The tables scattered around the place would be full of students pouring over textbooks or going through online resources. Books would be strewn across every surface, and there would probably be more people to help.

When Stiles sat down at the desktop computer, fully logged on with a blank word document and Google open, he had no idea what to search. Is ‘good ways to prank people’ a good search? Do these computers get monitored? He knew there had been a reason he had thought of grabbing his laptop while he was walking back to the dorm. Now was not the time to over think this though, he needed to find ways to get back at Derek for being super annoying, and he could feel guilty and paranoid later.

Finally, Stiles tentatively typed in ‘good ways to prank your roommate’. With pages upon pages of different articles and blog entries, Stiles was not disappointed with what came up. Now all he had to do was decide what he wanted to use, and put his plan in motion.

…

The first phase of Stiles’ plan was simple, but he felt it would effective. The night before the first football game (which Derek was part of since he’s part of the team and if Stiles had to hear one more thing about football he was going to choke Derek) Stiles would wait until Derek went to sleep and then go into their bathroom. Really, he could have just planned to go into their bathroom before Derek fell asleep because it wasn’t like Derek was going to walk in while Stiles was in there, but that wouldn’t work. And the reason it wouldn’t work is that Stiles was going to take flour and put it into Derek’s hairdryer. Derek never really used his blow-dryer but Stiles had overheard him talking to his girlfriend about how he would have to the day before the game because he couldn’t just wait for his hair to dry naturally like he usually did. 

Since Stiles wasn’t on the football team and he didn’t have class on Friday, he didn’t have to wake up early. He knew he probably would end up awake earlier than normal, because if his plan went how he wanted it to, he would wake up to Derek yelling.

So when the day approached, Stiles made sure he had some flour and put it in a place where he didn’t think that Derek would find it. Around ten o’clock, Derek went to sleep because he didn’t want to be tired the next day. Around eleven o’clock, Stiles got out of bed, made sure that Derek was really asleep, got the flour out, and went into the bathroom. It took only minutes to dump the flour into the open end of Derek’s blow-dryer and put it back in the exact same spot it had been before he had grabbed it.

When he walked back into the other room, Derek was in the same exact spot he had been in when Stiles had left the room. Stiles took the leftover flour and put it back where he had had it, making sure that none of it was going to spill, and climbed back into bed.

He was quite satisfied when the next morning at about six o’clock he woke up to the sound of Derek yelling, “Stilinski, I am going to beat your ass!”

Even for six a.m. his day really couldn’t get any better.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figured I should mention that for this story, Stiles has glasses.

After a week of intense glaring, Derek tried to make a peace offering with Stiles. He didn't know what he had done to piss the boy off, admittedly he was proud of himself for annoying him so quickly, but he figured if that was the first thing the boy could do, his so called pranks would only get worse. After the day of mocking he had endured after the flour incident, Derek wasn't ready to face another prank. The day of his next football game didn't need to go like the last one.

The day that Derek had had his first football game for college, he had woken up later than he should have. When he finally got out of bed he had reasoned that it would be okay because he could just take a shorter shower and be fine. It never took him very long to get ready in the morning. Then he managed to take a longer shower than normal so he had to use his hairdryer even more than he thought he would because he couldn’t go anywhere with water dripping down his neck from his hair. The last possible thing that he had imagined could go wrong that day was a cloud of white powder blowing out as he turned on his hairdryer, cascading down on him, attaching to his hair and every available patch of bare skin. His first thought had been to worry that there was no way he was going to be able to get ready now, and his second thought was: Stiles.

There was really no other way for a ton of flour to get into his hairdryer. He had not realized that there was any actual flour in the dorm, but he assumed Stiles had brought it in. And that meant the boy had planned this. 

“Stilinski, I am going to beat your ass!” Derek yelled, trying to keep his voice at a respectable level since there were other students in the dorms next to this one.

Derek figured Stiles wouldn’t even move since he had learned that the smaller boy was a very heavy sleeper, but when Derek walked into the room where Stiles was sleeping, he saw Stiles shift the blankets tighter around himself. Derek was aware that as he walked from the bathroom to Stiles’ bed he was dripping a mixture of water and flour, but couldn’t be bothered. If he took another shower, no matter how quick, he would definitely be late, but if he took the chance and just got as much of the flour off of him as he could, he would definitely be made fun of all day. He wouldn’t have to see any students during class, but he would have to deal with the football team since right now, he should be heading to their early morning, before the first game practice. 

Derek ripped the covers away from Stiles’ body and earned a whimper from the boy. Stiles turned over so that he was facing Derek.

“What the hell dude?” Stiles asked, slight knowing smirk on his face as he rubbed at his eyes and then grabbed his glasses.

“Why the hell did you put flour in my hairdryer?”

Stiles smiled. “Felt like it dude.”

Derek glared for a moment, and once he figured out that Stiles’ smile was not going to waver, he stomped back to the bathroom to try to get some of the flour off of him and then get dressed. Once he was done, he rushed out of the room and to the weight room.

“Hale! Where have you been?” A squat, balding man known as the football coach shouted as Derek ran into the weight room about ten minutes late.

“I’m sorry coach,” Derek muttered, joining his teammates. He didn’t try to give an explanation since the last time he had seen one of his teammates try that, the guy had had to run laps around the football field. Not that Derek didn’t think he would have to do that anyway, just for him being late.

“Get to work Hale,” the coach said, surprising Derek and every one of his teammates that heard the coach. “We’ve got a game tonight.”

Derek instantly joined his team and started working out like he was supposed to. He thought that maybe no one would notice the small white specks that still dotted some of his dark hair, but that did not turn out to be the case.

“What did you do to your hair Derek?” one of the older football players asked, walking right behind Derek and grabbing at his hair. “You look like you’ve got some major dandruff problems.”

“Do we need to get you some special shampoo?” another boy said.

“Or do we just need to explain what a proper shower is?” yet another said.

The rest of the team, the ones that hadn’t spoken up, snickered as the older members of the team picked on Derek. Derek was trying to just get on with his workout and ignore his teammates. Everything would be better if he just kept his mouth shut. The coach had explained at the beginning of the year that he would take no violence between the members of the team, and had explained what would happen if a fight did break out. Now Derek didn’t plan on fighting with these guys, but maybe say something so that they would stop. He didn’t want it to escalate to a fight though, so keeping his mouth shut was his best option. After all, he didn’t want to be benched for the first game when he had already been told he would definitely see at least some time on the field.

When the team figured out that Derek wasn’t going to say anything, they walked away, laughing and making jokes at his expense as they did so. One of the other members of the team, one that was just entering college this year like Derek, walked up and sat down at machine next to the one Derek was sitting in.

“What did happen anyway Derek?” the boy asked, talking and working at the same time.

“Just a joke from my roommate.”

“What did he do?”

“Put flour in my hairdryer.”

The boy laughed and then looked over at Derek, like he was expecting Derek to get annoyed. “Sorry, uh, who’s your roommate?”

“Stiles Stilinski.”

“Okay, never heard of him.”

“You’re lucky.”

After that, workouts and practice went on. The boys picked on Derek still, mainly in their own little groups and just loud enough for Derek to hear them. Derek focused on practicing, and thought that if that was the reaction to the first trick Stiles played, it might be in his best interest to find out if his roommate was going to continue this or not. 

…

So after all the initial glaring on Derek’s part and the smirking on Stiles’ part, Derek decided to figure out what was going on.

“So Stiles,” he said as casually as possible, walking up to the boy who was lying on his bed, a textbook balanced on one leg, a notebook on the other, and a pen in between his teeth. 

“What Derek, I’m trying to study,” he mumbled out around the pen.

“I just want to know what I did to piss you off so bad.”

“What do you mean?”

“You put flour into my hairdryer and I haven’t even known you very long. What did I do?”

“Oh,” Stiles said, looking up from his textbook and notebook. “You’re just annoying and pretty cocky. You just seem like the kind of guy who knows what he wants and expects everyone to give it to him on a golden platter. You’ve probably got the perfect home life, perfect girlfriend, you’re popular, probably balance good grades, and you’re a good football player. That kind of life sets a person up to be egotistic and it pisses me off.”

“So you’re basing this off of how you think my life has gone?”

Stiles raised an eyebrow at Derek, implying that he wanted Derek to try to prove him wrong. “Okay, go through what I said and tell me whether I’m right or wrong about each thing.”

“Okay, I’m pretty close with my whole family so-”

“Point one: Stiles.”

“I like my girlfriend, I don’t know what other people think of her but I like her. Everyone at my high school liked me,” Derek started.

“Point two: Stiles. And you’re going for that here too, it’s already working.”

Derek’s eyebrows scrunched together. He was losing this so far. “I get good grades, and thanks for saying I’m good at football.”

“Four points Stiles, zero points Derek. Looks like you are the stereotypical asshole jock that I can’t stand. That would be why I decided to put flour into your hairdryer.”

“And you’ve got more planned don’t you.”

“Of course.”

“Alright then.” Derek paused, unsure of how to continue this but figuring he might as well give Stiles even more of a reason to hate him. “That prank sucked though.”

“I heard in class that your teammates thought it was hilarious. I heard a few dandruff jokes too.”

“It was still lame. Flour in my hairdryer? Is that the best you can do?”

“Nope, that is just me getting started.”

Internally, Derek was groaning.

“What are you planning on doing for dinner?” Derek asked after a few minutes. Stiles had gone back to studying or doing homework or whatever he was doing and he looked like he had just gotten focused again. His pen was scribbling notes across the paper about as fast as he could read the words from the book. Even though Derek had good grades, he worked hard to keep them that way, way harder than it seemed Stiles had to work. Derek had to admit, even if it was only to himself, that he was a bit jealous of how easy schoolwork came to Stiles.

“Uh, try to find actual food?”

“Let’s go out,” Derek said, not even thinking about the way that he phrased it, just letting the words flow out of his mouth before his brain could actually think.

Stiles raised an eyebrow at Derek. “Sorry dude, but I don’t swing that way.”

Derek froze, eyes going wide. In response, Stiles got up off of his bed, gently putting all of his stuff together. The boy walked by Derek to the door, smirking, and said, “Well come on Derek, you can’t just promise someone dinner and then freeze up.”

As Derek trailed after Stiles, he could hear the other male laughing quietly.

…

“Seriously Derek, how long does it take for you to figure out what you want on a sub?” Stiles said, standing next to Derek, trying not to bounce all over the place, already holding his sub.

“Just because you asked for the easiest one the guy had to make all day doesn’t mean the rest of us do that too.”

“But how long does it really take?” 

Derek finished ordering and paid for the both of them. He decided against actually answering Stiles.

Before Derek could even sit across from Stiles at the small table the boy had picked, Stiles was already devouring his sandwich. Derek sat down, took his sandwich out, opened his chips, and Stiles was halfway through his foot long sub.

“I’ll pay you back for this, by the way,” Stiles said around a mouthful of meatball.

Derek waved him off. “It’s okay, I offered.”

“Yeah, but we’re both struggling college students, I can pay you back.”

Derek rolled his eyes and went to eating. When he was finally half way through, Stiles was completely done.

“Were you hungry or something?” 

“Yeah a little.”

Stiles stood up from the table, first to throw away his trash, and then he just didn’t sit back down. Derek looked up at him curiously, but the boy was glancing around the room. His brown eyes were flitting from one table to the next, observing each person for a few seconds and then moving on to the next person or group of people.

“Why aren’t you sitting down?” Derek asked.

Stiles shook his hands at his sides and then sat back down. “Sorry, I was getting antsy. I keep forgetting to take my Adderall.”

“ADHD?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you keep forgetting to take it?”

“It’s weird for me to do it around new people the first few times. They always look at me with this look like they first wonder if whatever I’m taking pills for is contagious, and then they ask me what’s wrong with you. Not why are you taking those or what do they help, but what’s wrong with you. I hate the way people say it.” Stiles paused, looking kind of like he didn’t want to continue. “I had been taking them while you were at practice because you weren’t in the room, but then one day I forgot to take them and now my whole schedule is off.”

“Feel free to take them when you need to then. My younger sister, Cora, has ADHD.”

“So you probably would have known what I was taking.”

“Yeah probably.”

Derek then finished his sub and took care of his own trash. “Alright, we can go back now. You probably have studying to do.”

Stiles nodded as the two walked out of the small shop and back to Derek’s car. “I do. Don’t you have stuff to do too?”

“Yeah,” Derek said with a sigh of frustration, “And I should probably get to work on it.”

“If you ever need help, I can help you.”

“Thanks Stiles.”

“No problem, but don’t think that this means I’m going to stop pranking you. You called my last one lame so it’s on now.”

“Believe me; I didn’t think it was over.”

…

Stiles only spent about another hour studying once he and Derek got back to their dorm after going to Subway. It had been nice, actually talking to Derek and not just assuming that the boy was an asshole. Stiles was still desperately hanging onto that though, and he didn’t quite know why. Why did he so desperately want Derek to be a complete and utter asshole?

“Yo, Scott,” Stiles said excitedly into his phone. He had left the dorm room where Derek had been studying and had begun walking around. Pretty soon he had gotten bored and decided to call Scott.

“Hey Stiles, how’s everything going?”

“Pretty good, I put flour into Derek’s hairdryer last week and he got made fun of by the football team. He got up late so he wasn’t able to shower again. He got most of the flour out but it still looked like he had dandruff. The football team is now making dandruff jokes at his expense.”

“And you’re proud of yourself for that one aren’t you?”

“When have you known me not to be proud of something like this Scott?”

“Had to make sure you were still my best friend.”

“Of course dude. Although, Derek and I went and got dinner today, platonically don’t go there with me Scott, so we actually talked. Other than having everything the stereotypical jock should have, Derek is a pretty decent guy.”

“So are you going to stop pranking him then?”

“Hell no! He said my prank was lame, he is gonna regret that one.”

Scott laughed. “He really is Stiles. So how do you feel about him now?”

“He’s pretty great, y’know. I don’t mind him. There were always worse roommates, I’m sure.” Stiles paused, completely going silent on the line.

“Are you still there?” Scott asked.

“Yeah um,” Stiles cleared his throat. “I still want him to be an asshole though. I don’t know why, but I don’t want to like him.”

Scott just makes a noise through the phone. It sounds like he wants Stiles to keep going, but Stiles doesn’t know how to keep going. All he knows is that most of his being is shouting at him to hate Derek, but then there’s parts of him that are starting to like the other student. There wasn’t anything else to it. It was probably just that Stiles had had to deal with Jackson through his childhood and just didn’t want to be friends with a guy who would probably be instant friends with Jackson Whittemore.

“I don’t know how to keep going Scott.”

“Oh, okay, sorry. Well I guess there’s something about him that makes you not want to like him. I can’t really help you there Stiles.”

“Yeah, yeah, you never have a problem with this because everyone loves you. Actual Puppy Scott McCall.”

“Hey!”

“Well, I’ve got to go, talk to you late bro.”

“But Stiles-”

Before Scott could actually finish a sentence, Stiles closed his phone, laughing to himself. Scott was going to be so angry, and it made Stiles so happy.

…

Phase two of how Stiles was going to further piss Derek off was a lot like phase one. The plan wasn’t to put flour, or any other baking ingredient, into Derek’s hairdryer or into anything else like that. This phase could actually harm Stiles too. Let the world know that that was how far Stiles was willing to take this. Stiles’ plan was to take colored dye and put it into the hand soap in the bathroom. Stiles was actually quite lucky for this part that the soap that they had, which was just some cheap stuff Derek had picked up at the dollar store, was in a container that was not see through. If it had been in a see through container, Stiles would have had to revise his plan since Derek would have been able to see right through to the soap and would have seen that it was discolored.

Like with the flour, there was no dye in the dorm room. Stiles had to go out and buy a small tube of it, and bring it back with him. This time, he just put it in one of the pockets of his backpack, praying that it wouldn’t open and spill all over everything inside. 

Derek had another early morning practice that Friday, this time before going to class. While Derek was gone, Stiles took the dye out of his backpack, went into the bathroom, and put a few drops into the top of the open container. He shook around the bottle a bit and then put it back where it was supposed to be.

This time, Stiles had decided to be a little nicer to Derek. The last time, he had done the prank with the intention of making Derek go through a full day with the flour in his hair. This time, Derek probably wouldn’t be affected until later tonight, after he got back from the football game. Derek’s schedule was to go from this practice, right to his few classes of the day, and then get ready for the game. He wouldn’t be coming back to the dorm, but as soon as he did he would turn his hands blue and he wouldn’t even know it.

At least he wouldn’t have to go through school and a football game with blue hands. No, this time he would just have to go through the weekend. Who he saw during that time, and who he told about the incident, was totally up to him.

So Stiles waited, and when Derek walked through the door, a smirk appeared on his face.

“What are you smiling at Stilinski?” Derek said, already on his way to the bathroom.

“Nothing,” Stiles replied.

After shrugging, Derek continued on to the bathroom. Stiles heard the tap on the sink turn on and could imagine Derek squirting soap onto his hands, not thinking anything about it.

“Did you get new soap Stiles?” Derek asked. 

Stiles didn’t answer, just waited for the inevitable.

“Why are my hands fucking blue? Stiles!” 

The smirk on Stiles’ face didn’t leave, not even when Derek barged in, demanding to know why Stiles thought this was so funny.


	3. Chapter 3

When Stiles was able to get away with minimal homework at the end of the week, his mindset was to stay as far away from it as possible. If he did have homework but it was very little, or even just less than he normally had to look forward to, he would leave it until Sunday night. Any studying and any assignments could be done Sunday night. So that Friday when he got back to his dorm room and realized that he had gone through a week of school and ended up with no homework and minimal studying, he didn’t plan on waking up at eleven on Saturday and cracking the books for a class that he wasn’t even taking.

On Saturday morning, Stiles woke up at about eleven o’clock. He noticed that Derek wasn’t still asleep, but he never was. Derek always woke up way before Stiles did. He was much more of a morning person than Stiles was. Stiles turned over toward the bedside table and grabbed his glasses. The minute he did that, Derek walked back into the room.

“So you finally decided to join the land of the living,” Derek said, placing a cup of coffee where Stiles’ glasses had been.

Stiles immediately grabbed the cup, wrapping his hands around it, and lifting it up to his face. He had to blow on the hot liquid for a few moments before he could take an actual drink. “What time did you wake up?” Stiles asked after taking a gulp of coffee.

“A few hours ago.”

Stiles nodded. “Thanks for the coffee by the way.”

“No problem. You’ve said before that you can’t function without it so I figured I would grab you some when I went to get my own.”

“Well thanks.”

The two boys went silent for a moment, both of them thinking to themselves. Stiles was still trying to fully wake up, but the coffee was helping.

“Hey Stiles?”

“Hi Derek.”

Derek rolled his eyes. “I’m asking a question.”

“I know,” Stiles said, smirking up at Derek.

Derek rolled his eyes again. “Okay, I’m going to ask my question now. Will you help me study for my Chemistry test?”

“Uh, sure. Why do you want my help?”

“Because you’re actually smart and I need help studying. If I don’t do well on this test I’m definitely going to fail the class.”

“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to react to that actually there Derek, but yeah I can help you. We’re not even close to the end of the semester though, you know that right? Just this test doesn’t mean you’re going to fail.”

“I’m not good at Chemistry.”

“Alright then, let’s get started.”

Stiles got out of bed and out of the cocoon of blankets he had wrapped himself into. Even though he probably would have been more comfortable sitting on his own bed Derek didn’t look like he was going to be comfortable sitting on Stiles’ bed with him, and Stiles didn’t want to sit on  Derek’s bed. So the floor was where they were going to sit.

When Derek sat down on the floor he had a Chemistry textbook, notes, and a study guide in a pile between his legs. He handed the study guide to Stiles first. “These are the things that I need to know for this test,” he said.

Stiles scanned the page, thankful that he already knew most of the things that were listed on the page. “When is the test?”

“Monday,” Derek said, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling a bit sheepish for waiting this long to start studying when he knew that he really needed to study.

“Well, I guess we really need to get this stuff down then. Most of this stuff I already know, so I should be able to explain the stuff in better ways than your book probably does.”

 Derek takes the textbook from the bottom of the pile and hands it to Stiles. “Everything for the test is in chapter three.”

When Stiles flips to the first page of chapter three he immediately starts scanning the page. For the next few minutes, he flips between the pages in the chapter, looking at graphs and reading through the beefy paragraphs. He might have already known what he was doing, but he still needed to brush up on the specifics of everything.

“Alright,” Stiles said once he had flipped through the entire chapter and scanned every paragraph. “I’ll start asking you some of these questions in the chapter review.”

Derek nodded, ready to go along with whatever Stiles wanted to do.

Stiles smirked. “And for every right answer, I’ll keep my clothes on. For every wrong answer, I’ll take a piece of clothing off.”

“What?” Derek said, eyes rounded out to the size of plates. “Why the hell would you do that?”

“Dude, I’m joking,” Stiles said, his laughter filling the room.

Derek’s cheeks flared red and heated up. “Okay, okay, can we just study now?”

Still laughing, Stiles nodded. “Alright, what type of atoms make up most chemical compounds?”

When Derek opened his mouth to answer the question, Stiles stopped him. Stiles grinned at Derek and said, “Think carefully. Remember, if you get this wrong, I take clothing off.”

Derek rolled his eyes, acting like he knew Stiles was going to stay fully clothed, and praying that he actually would. “Nonmetal atoms?”

“Yep, so all of my clothes stay on. Too bad.”

“Just ask the next question Stiles.”

“Alright, alright, what is the simplest way to describe a molecular compound?”

“An empirical formula.”

“Again, the clothes stay on.” Stiles looked up from the textbook to stare at Derek. “I thought you said that you needed to study a lot for this test.”

“That was only the second question.”

“What are two distinct bits of information that are indicated by a structural formula for a molecular compound?”

“Um, see this is where it gets harder. Um, are there any options you can give me?”

“Of course. Order and type of its constituent parts, type and resolution of its atoms, the strength and variation of its bonds, or type and solubility of its atoms.”

Derek, who had been leaning against the end of his own bed, curled over so his elbows were on his knees and his head was cradled into his hands. “I really have no idea on this one.”

“This will count as a wrong answer if you don’t have an answer, do you really want to do that?”

“Well what am I supposed to do if I don’t know the answer?”

Even though Derek couldn’t see it from how he was sitting, Stiles grinned. “You guess. I gave you a bunch of options.”

“Um, I don’t know, the first one?”

“And you’re right.”

Derek let out a sigh. “What ones did I pick?” he asked.

“Order and type of its constituent parts. Your next question is what is the main difference between the condensed structural formula and structural formula of a molecular formula?”

“The condensed formula is shown on one line.”

“Right again. You could at least get one wrong to show that you aren’t hating on my body Derek. You’re making me feel self-conscious.”

“I’m sorry Stiles but I don’t want to see you get naked.”

Stiles sighed dramatically. “What is an example of a molecular formula with the exact same empirical and molecular formulas?”

“Can you give me options?”

“Sure, acetic acids, azetic acids, vinegar, or formaldehyde.”

“I’ll just take a guess since I don’t know this one either. Um, azetic acids?”

With a bit more joy than Derek would have liked, Stiles let out a sound to imitate the sound that would be made for a wrong answer. “Finally, you got one wrong. Now I get to take my clothes off. I’ll start with my pants just for you.”

“You said you were joking!”

“Well I wasn’t!”

Stiles put all of Derek’s notes down on the ground next to where he was sitting and grabbed the sides of his sweatpants with both hands. He had a grin on his face, he wasn’t really going to pull them down, he just wanted to see Derek squirm. The other boy looked like he was ready to have a panic attack at even the prospect of Stiles taking his pants off.

Just as Stiles started to slowly pull his pants down though, their dorm room door was opened. Through the door came Derek’s girlfriend, there to ruin Stiles’ fun.

“Well what are you two getting up to?” the girl said, sitting right down on Derek’s bed.

Derek got up off of the floor and sat down next to her. “Stiles was helping me study for my Chemistry test. Stiles this is my girlfriend Elodie, Elodie this is my roommate Stiles.”

Elodie smiled politely at Stiles, showing off her perfect, white teeth. The girl was everything that Stiles expected Derek’s girlfriend to be. She gave off this feeling that she was very sweet and very smart and very popular. Stiles had seen her around the school before and had known that she was Derek’s girlfriend, but he had never met the girl and he had never been close enough to her to really see her. He knew she was a cheerleader, which fit well since Derek was on the football team. The girl had perfectly straight brunette hair and brown eyes only a few shades lighter than Stiles’ own. Right now she was dressed in a turquoise t-shirt that came down her chest enough to show some of her cleavage, a pair of white capris pants that went halfway down her calf, and a pair of white Converse. A necklace with a turquoise gem sparkled at her neck, matching perfectly with the turquoise earrings she had in. Overall, Stiles thought she looked perfect and could definitely see why Derek would want to date her.

“You’re the one that got the entire football team to call Derek Dandruff Derek right? And the one that dyed his hands blue?”

Stiles nodded with a smug look on his face.

The look on Stiles’ face seemed to anger Elodie. “Why do you look so happy about that Stiles?” she demanded,

“Because he is,” Derek interjected, not letting Stiles answer. “Just drop it okay? He’s just having fun.”

“At your expense.”

Derek just shrugged.

“Fine,” Elodie said, moving all of her attention to Derek. The girl put her small hand on Derek’s chest and slowly moved her upper body closer to him.

Stiles wasn’t dumb, he knew what Elodie came here for. She definitely wanted something from Derek. Whether it was a major make out session or sex, Stiles didn’t know, but he did know that the way that she was looking at Derek like he was a sack of meat told him everything he needed to know.

Stiles cleared his throat, making sure the couple knew he was still there. “Did you guys want me to leave?” he asked.

At the same time that Elodie said yes, Derek said no. Derek’s answer caused his girlfriend to pull away from him quickly and look at him in confusion.

“What do you mean you don’t want him to leave?” she asked.

“You don’t have a roommate, if we want to continue, we can go to your room.”

Elodie looked disappointed by this but took no time in grabbing Derek by the hand and dragging him out of the room. She didn’t even notice, or maybe she just didn’t care, that Derek was still in his pajamas.

“See you later Stiles!” Stiles heard Derek call from the hall way.

Stiles just set to getting all of Derek’s things off of the floor and back into the other boy’s backpack.

…

After Derek was dragged out of the room, Stiles didn’t really do anything. He went down to the cafeteria and had lunch with his friends Boyd, Erica, and Isaac, went back to Boyd and Isaac’s room to hang out with the three of them, and then went back to his own room when his other friends said that they had studying that they had to do. Being with them was fun but when he got to his dorm at about nine o’clock, he couldn’t think of anything to do. He tried watching videos on his laptop and he tried reading but neither of those things held his attention. By ten thirty he was lying in bed, tossing and turning, as he tried to fall asleep. Even sleep didn’t want to relieve his boredom.

Finally, Stiles was able to get to sleep.

_Derek and Stiles were sitting in their dorm room, both of them sitting down on the floor in front of their beds. They both have notebooks, textbooks, and pens strewn across the floor in front of them. It’s the week before finals and both boys are studying as hard as they can and helping the other study as much as they can. Neither of them had been smart enough to take even a single easy class this semester so now they were paying for it. The two were taking their textbooks and all their notes everywhere with them. When they went to eat lunch, they would pull their stuff out and study while they ate. When they were getting ready in the morning, they were walking around with textbooks in front of their faces. The scene laid out now was nothing new for the two of them._

_“I think it’s time to take a little break,” Stiles said, stretching his arms above his head, revealing a strip of pale skin when his t-shirt rode up._

_Derek looked up at Stiles. “That’s a good idea.”_

_The two of them stood up from the ground at the same time and made their way over to Derek’s bed. When both of them were sat comfortably at the edge of the bed, Derek grabbed a piece of paper from his bedside table. “Alright, all you have to do is spell these easy words correctly.”_

_Stiles nodded quickly, eagerly._

_“Across.”_

_“A-c-r-o-s-s.”_

_Derek sat up a little and pulled his black t-shirt over his head and threw it to the other side of the room._

_“Except.”_

_“E-x-c-e-p-t.”_

_This time, Derek got up off of the bed and pulled his gray sweatpants down so they were pooling at his feet. He stepped out of them and sat back down on the bed next to Stiles. After taking off his shirt and his pants, all Derek was left in was a pair of tight, black, boxers._

_“One more word Stiles.”_

_“I know.”_

_“Village.”_

_“V-i-l-l-a-g-e.”_

_With a smirk in Stiles’ direction, Derek got up off of the bed again. He stood right in front of Stiles and put his hands on the waistband of his boxers. He slipped his thumbs under the material and slowly started pulling them down._

Stiles woke up with a start. He immediately sat up in his bed, eyes wide and gasping for air. He just had a dream about Derek stripping after he had spelled words correctly. While gasping, Stiles tried blinking quickly to get rid of the image he now had at the forefront of his brain, but it wouldn’t go away. It seemed to be etched into his brain.

Stiles really wished that was his only problem, but when he shifted in bed he realized he had another problem. No, no, no he thought, I can’t be attracted to my roommate, my male roommate.

Without thinking about the fact that it was nearly four o’clock in the morning, Stiles quickly left the room, knowing that if he didn’t call Scott that minute, he would probably have a panic attack.

When Stiles got to a secluded area just outside of the dorm building, he fumbled his phone out of his pocket and called Scott. The thing that pissed Stiles off the worst right now was the fact that when he needed Scott, really needed him, the other boy was unavailable. Sure, he might be sleeping, but Stiles was having a breakdown. The second thing that pissed him off was the fact that Scott’s voicemail was: “Hey this is Scott McCall, if I don’t pick up I’m probably hanging with my girlfriend Allison.” And at that moment the voicemail seemed like a slap to the face.

“Hey Scott, it’s Stiles, I know that it’s four in the morning, but I really need you. If you could call me back as soon as possible, which is preferably in about ten seconds, it would really be great.”

When Stiles hung up he had to try really hard to keep himself from throwing his phone at the building and watching it break into a million pieces. He probably would have, even if it had been a few moments later, if Scott hadn’t called almost right back.

“Stiles, why are you waking me up at four in the morning and saying that you need me?”

“Did you ignore my call and then listen to the voicemail? You know that I hate it when you do that Scott.”

“Yeah well ,I was trying to sleep. What do you need?”

Stiles took a deep breath and then let everything spill out. “I think I might be gay and I think I may be attracted to my roommate.”

“Why?”

Stiles quickly told Scott a condensed version of his dream. “And when I woke up, I was hard. Dude that hasn’t happened in a long time okay, I am freaking out. Do you know how close I am to having a panic attack or something?”

“Stiles, calm down. It’s fine.”

“What am I going to do Scott? What am I going to tell my dad? How am I supposed to face Derek every day? I fucking sleep in the same room as him Scott.”

“Dude, you’ll tell your dad everything when you’re ready just like you always do. And you’ll face Derek the same way you faced Lydia for all those years.”

“This is not the same thing Scott.”

“It is, you’re just freaking out because Derek has a dick.”

“Yes Scott, that is the reason I’m freaking out.”

“It’ll be fine.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Stiles, you’ll be fine. I know you’ll figure out how to deal with this. You were always really good at figuring out problems, even if they weren’t yours to deal with.”

Stiles sighed, not really feeling any better but glad that he had gotten that off of his chest. “I guess I’ll let you go back to sleep then.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Alright.”

With about five minutes of talking to his best friend, Stiles wasn’t really feeling any better, but the pressure on his chest had gone down. He felt like he could go back to his room, lay down, and sleep if he tried. He knew he tended to over dramatize things, but he always felt he had a valid reason.

When he got back to his dorm room, he realized Derek had been asleep when he had left. Stiles panicked a little when he saw that Derek was now awake, and looking right at him.

“Are you alright?” Derek asked, voice sounding groggy, like he could fall back to sleep any minute.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You’re sure? You sounded a little panicked when you ran from the room.”

Stiles nodded even though he didn’t know if Derek could see him or not. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just go back to sleep.”

Obviously Derek didn’t need to be told twice since Stiles got no reply, just the sound of Derek’s slow, even breathing.

…

After Stiles’ freak-out, he acted as normal as he possibly could around Derek. He helped him study again on Sunday morning, but didn’t make any joke about taking any clothing off this time. He did everything that he normally did, but felt a bit more uncomfortable around his roommate, especially when it was time to go to sleep.

Of course since Stiles had started pranking Derek, he couldn’t stop now, even though he had realized something major about himself. On Sunday night, Stiles had needed to go to the grocery store to get some essentials for the room, so after telling Derek and Elodie where he was going, Stiles left. When Stiles got back he had the normal stuff including some snacks and some notebooks since he had been running low. What Derek and Elodie didn’t realize was that one of the bags contained one a box of plastic wrap. Stiles’ plan was to take the plastic wrap and cover the opening of the toilet with it. He wasn’t sure what he wanted to happen after that, but he figured something bad would definitely happen.

Later that evening, Elodie made Derek walk her home. The minute that Derek closed the door Stiles grabbed the box of plastic wrap he had stashed in one of the cupboards. He didn’t know how long it would take Derek to walk Elodie back to her dorm and then walk back but he knew he should probably hurry. After grabbing the plastic wrap he grabbed a knife and walked into the bathroom.

Stiles lifted the seats off of the toilet so all that was left was the opening. He ripped a piece of plastic wrap that would be big enough to cover the toilet out of the box and got to work. Once he pressed the plastic wrap to the side of the toilet and was sure that nothing was poking out that would alert Derek to the prank, he took care of everything and jumped onto his bed.

After another ten minutes had passed, Derek walked back into the room. Stiles smirked when he saw the other boy walking into the bathroom and closing the door. He was just thankful that Derek hadn’t looked at him because he definitely wouldn’t have been able to contain his excitement.

“What the fuck?” Derek said, confusion lacing the words.

“Stiles! What the fuck did you do to the toilet? Why is it spilling everywhere?”

The longer that Stiles waited, the angrier Derek sounded.

“What did you do?” Derek demanded, stomping out of the bathroom.

Stiles’ first instinct was to laugh and he ended up laughing so hard that tears started spilling from his eyes, his sides and cheeks hurt, and he almost fell off of the bed.

“Saran wrap,” Stiles gasped out between periods of laughter.

Derek turned around going back into the bathroom to clean up the mess. “What an idiot,” he muttered, hearing Stiles continue to wheeze from laughter.  


	4. Chapter 4

“Woah, Elodie, where the hell is this coming from?” Derek shouted into the phone that he had cradled between his ear and his shoulder.

Stiles couldn’t hear what Elodie said, but from Derek’s reaction, he could tell it had taken what was left of Derek’s restraint and snapped it in half.

“What the fuck do you mean? There’s nothing going on with me! I’m the same exact person that you were dating yesterday!”

Derek’s voice went a little quieter this time. “There’s nothing new that’s happened. I don’t know what you think is different about me, but there’s nothing. I don’t know why you think that I have become a different, more distracted person. We’ve been dating for three years and I still love you like I did back in high school.”

Sitting down on his bed, Derek took the phone into his hand and held it against his ear. “What are you saying Elodie?” he said, a tinge of anger still laced through his words.

“Yeah, I think going home sounds like a good idea too. Bye.”

Stiles was still sitting on his own bed the same way that he had been sitting when Elodie first called Derek. The beginning of their conversation had been a lot of Derek repeating himself, asking Elodie what was going on. By the way it sounded, the girl had started out in hysterics and Derek couldn’t get her to say what she was upset about. After a while, she must have stopped crying, or maybe she had continued to cry at the same time, but she started to yell. The girl was very loud. So loud that Stiles could hear almost everything that she was shouting through the phone. At that point, Derek must have gotten what she was upset about because that was when he started to yell. From what Stiles heard Derek yelling, he understood that Elodie thought that Derek was becoming a different person, that he didn’t love her anymore, and that there was something that he was keeping from her. Derek kept telling her that there was nothing different, that he still loved her, but she didn’t seem to be buying it.

Now Stiles was trying to act like he hadn’t heard that entire conversation.

“You’re probably wondering what all of that was about?” Derek said, looking up at Stiles, raising one eyebrow at him like he always does.

Stiles shrugged. “If you don’t want to tell me, that’s completely your business.”

The thing was, part of Stiles wanted to know, and the other part of him didn’t want to know. The part of Stiles wanted to know knew that after that fight, Derek probably wanted to rant about it. Derek probably wanted to get everything off of his chest that he hadn’t been able to tell his girlfriend. If it was Stiles that was in that position, he would want someone to listen to him rant about it and tell him how he was right. And that part of Stiles was also super curious and just a little bit nosy. Then there was the part of Stiles that didn’t want to know about Derek’s problems. He didn’t want to know about the fight because he didn’t want to hear about Derek’s relationship with his girlfriend. Stiles knew that logically he had no chance with Derek. Derek was a straight male with a girlfriend that would probably never look at Stiles even if he did fancy the company of other men. Stiles knew that he shouldn’t feel jealous of Elodie, but he was going to because he had a crush that was getting worse every day so he was going to act childish and be jealous of Derek’s girlfriend.

For a moment, Derek seemed to contemplate if he really wanted to tell Stiles or not. He continued to sit at the end of his own bed and look back and forth from his lap to Stiles and back again. Stiles just sat in his own bed and continued to write notes, waiting for Derek to come up with a decision.

After a few minutes, Derek stood up from his bed, and started pacing. “Okay, I’m not totally sure what Elodie thinks is going on with me, because the entire time that I was on the phone with her she was either crying or yelling and telling me that I wasn’t acting like I still loved her. I think she thinks I found someone else. Which is pretty much impossible since the only person I’ve really hung out with here is you.”

Stiles tried to feel like that wasn’t a dig.

“While she was crying she was saying that all of her friends think I’ve been getting distracted and that we haven’t been going on as many dates as we used to and overall I’m just not paying attention to her. We’ve had this fight once before actually, and I get it she’s used to people paying attention to her. She’s used to being the center of attention and I get that. She was raised an only child and didn’t have to share her parents with anyone, she’s always had a lot of friends so someone has always been paying a lot of attention to her, she’s always had a lot of attention from guys, and she’s told me about some of her past boyfriends. All of them seemed to put her on a pedestal. I have always paid more attention to her than she has to me but I always figured that was okay because I didn’t need her to give her input on all aspects of my day. I personally don’t feel like I’ve stopped paying as much attention to her. We still go on dates at least once a week and she drags me to different parties and I hang around at her dorm and she hangs around here and I talk to her on the phone all the time, what else does she want me to do?”

Stiles didn’t think that was an actual question that was meant for him to answer, but Derek was breathing a little harder than he probably should have and Stiles figured that if he made Derek stop talking for a minute, he would be able to breathe properly again.

“I don’t know dude, maybe she’s just a little jealous of something? Do you ever talk to any other girls?”

Derek laughed, but it was a kind of humorless laugh. “Yeah, I try to talk to my sister’s about once a week.”

“Alright, I don’t know why she would be jealous of them since they are related to you.”

“And other than family I don’t talk to my team mates other than during practice. Literally you are the only person I talk to a lot other than her.”

Stiles felt kind of happy about that, his heart seemed to swell just a bit at Derek’s words. “Well, did she say anything else?”

“Well she decided that she’s going to go home and stay with her parents for a few days. Most of the classes that she is taking right now are online classes so she can do the work from anywhere, she doesn’t necessarily have to be here. And the class that she has that is actually in class is only a Tuesday/Thursday class so she can stay with her parents until Monday and head back here Monday night. She’s always been really close with her parents and her mom has always been really good at calming her down, so I hope that she can calm Elodie down. I really don’t understand how Elodie thinks that I found someone else.”

“Did she say when she thought you had started getting distracted?” Stiles said, trying to keep up his side of the conversation.

“She said everything was fine over the summer and even the first few weeks here, but lately I’ve seemed like I don’t care about her.”

“So she seems to think that you met someone when you got here.”

“Yep, that’s pretty much the whole thing. Or what I could get out of it.”

The two of them sit in silence for a moment. Stiles hopes that that helped Derek even though it killed him a little inside.

“What are your plans for the weekend Stiles?”

“Uh, gotta do some research.”

“For what?”

Stiles really didn’t want to answer that question. The research that he had to do wasn’t for one of his classes. Everything that he needed to do for his classes was study since most of his professors had decided that he needed to take a test on Monday or Tuesday. The research he needed to do was for the pranks that he was pulling on his roommate. The first three had been things that he had come up with, either from reading about them or hearing about them at some point, but now he was kind of stuck. He wanted to do his next prank over the weekend, but he didn’t know what he was going to do, so he had to do some research.

“Uh, some extracurricular stuff.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles but didn’t comment. “Okay, well how about you get all of that done and come to a party with me on Saturday.”

“Why would you want me to come to a party with you?”

Derek shrugged. “Usually Elodie goes with me and I sit on a couch because I don’t really socialize with people at parties or any other time. The football team kind of expects me to come to this party because I guess it’s supposed to be a celebration for how good we’ve been doing this season and I don’t want to be alone. I don’t talk to them and since Elodie is mad at me and will be at her parent’s house, I won’t have anyone to talk to.”

“So you aren’t going to ditch me if I do go?”

“No, not completely. Usually someone from the football team will try to talk to me for a few minutes but they eventually give up. I won’t be ignoring you or leaving you.”

Stiles nodded. “Okay, I guess I’ll go with you.”

The logical part of Stiles’ brain told him that he shouldn’t feel so giddy about Derek wanting him to go to a party with him, but he still did.

“I guess I’ll work on that research tonight then.”

Derek nodded and went back to sitting on his bed.

“I’ve got an early practice tomorrow so I’m going to go to bed. Goodnight Stiles.”

…

Stiles spent the time after Derek went to sleep that night to look up good pranks. He also woke up about the time Derek left for his practice the next day and took that time to look. Stiles didn’t have a class until later that day, so he spent hours looking through Google and YouTube to find something good. He watched multiple YouTube videos of “epic prank” compilations, hoping that one or two might be something that he could pull off and hoping that one or two would actually be an epic prank. A lot of the pranks he saw fell a little flat. About an hour before he had to start getting ready for his class, he found a forum where all kinds of people were posting good pranks that they had heard of or had actually done. Once he found the website he grabbed his notebook and started scribbling down pranks and what he would need to do each one. It looked like he was going to have to go grocery shopping soon.

…

The football team won their game on Friday and Stiles couldn’t help but notice that the group of cheerleaders looked weird without Elodie. He could only bring himself to care for a few moments since after that the final buzzer sounded, ending the game, and the student section rushed onto the field to congratulate the team.

…

“You’re not going to back out of going to that party now that it’s the day of, are you Stiles?” Derek said, walking back into their dorm room on Saturday.

“No Derek, I told you I would go, so I’ll go.”

“There’s going to be a lot of people there, and you probably won’t know most of them.”

Stiles looked up from his phone where he was typing out a text to Scott. His best friend was going through some more Allison troubles, and Stiles had had to try to calm the boy down through text since when everything had started, Stiles had been in the middle of one of his classes. When Stiles looked up at Derek, he was trying to raise his eyebrow like the other boy always did to him. He knew he wasn’t very good at it, and since Derek was laughing, he knew he hadn’t gotten any better.

“Are you trying to make me not want to go?” Stiles said, deciding to just glare at Derek.

“No, I just want to warn you.”

“Well stop trying to warn me. This isn’t my first party you know.”

“Did your first one include doing calculus?”

“Fuck you Derek, I am not that nerdy.”

“Everyone thinks you’re that nerdy.”

“What? Just because I get good grades and have to wear glasses?”

“Not necessarily because you have to wear glasses, it’s the glasses you have to wear.”

“No other glasses look good on me.”

“Those don’t exactly attract the ladies Stilinski.”

Since Stiles has almost no brain to mouth filter, he almost told Derek right then and there that he wasn’t trying to attract ladies. The words had literally been on the tip of his tongue. Before he could stop himself he had said, “Well I’m not exactly,” and then had shut his mouth just as fast.

Derek did the eyebrow raising thing again. “What?”

“Nothing.” Stiles knew that that wasn’t exactly the best way to cover something up, especially since the way he said it made it sound like he was definitely trying to hide something. Stiles knew that Derek was probably more curious now, and was likely to pester him about his slip up forever. “So what time do we need to go to this thing?”

“Any time really, I was thinking we could leave as soon as you get out of your pajamas,” Derek said, shrugging in answer to Stiles’ question, and smirking to his own little dig.

“Fuck you Derek, it’s Saturday and I didn’t have to leave the dorm.”

“You would like to,” Derek said.

Stiles decided not to dignify that with an answer and turned around to get clothes to wear. He could feel his cheeks burning.

When Derek and Stiles arrived at the party, no one seemed to care that Stiles had shown up. And Stiles had to be honest; he did think that someone was going to have a fit about him being there. He wasn’t on the football team, wasn’t dating a member of the football team, and he wasn’t even popular. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Derek had been right; most of the people that were surrounding him were unfamiliar faces. Some of the people were people that he had seen around campus, but he only knew them by face, he had no idea what their names were.

“You want a beer?” Derek said, shouting right into Stiles’ ear, trying to talk over the thumping music.

Stiles shook his head.

“Alright, they’re in the kitchen if you want one.”

Without saying anything else, Derek started walking around the place like he owned it. Stiles’ best guess was that a lot of the parties had been held here. In no time, Derek was exactly where he had said he would be: sitting on the couch.

“Is this all you do?” Stiles asked Derek after sitting down next to the other boy.

“Yeah, pretty much. When Elodie isn’t talking to her friends we usually make out, but that’s pretty much the highlight of parties for me.”

Stiles whole body flared with jealousy. “Then why do you go to them all of the time?”

Derek shrugged, completely unaware of how Stiles’ was feeling. “I almost feel like I have to. I know everyone expects me to come, so I do.”

Stiles just nodded.

“If you aren’t going to enjoy yourself, you can go back to the dorm.”

“I know Derek, it’s not like I’m going to let you tell me what I can and can’t do.”

“Okay, okay, I was just pointing it out.”

“Sorry.”

Stiles knows he was going to say more. He was going to try and talk to Derek, to actually hold a conversation now that they were here. He knows he would have, but that was when one of Derek’s football buddies decided to show up.

“Dandruff Derek, I hoped you would be here.” The other guy held up a hand for Derek to high five. Stiles thought that he was already drunk.

Derek high fived the guy. “Of course I’m here, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Figured that since Elodie wasn’t coming that you weren’t coming.”

Derek shrugged and the guy, figuring that the conversation was done, left.

“Alright,” Stiles said, “That wasn’t weird.”

“That was one of the guys from the football team; I told you one of them would come up to me and try to hold a conversation.”

“And I hadn’t said that you were wrong.”

The two of them sat on the couch, noticing that people were walking around them and sitting at the other end of the couch. Gradually, people started getting drunker and started doing more dumb things. There was a table in front of the couch that Derek and Stiles were sitting on and at one point it held people doing body shots. The minute one person would stand up, someone else would lie down on the table, and the entire process started over again. When someone stood on their head in front of the table and started drinking, Stiles started wondering how long the table was going to last. He wondered if that person was going to fall backwards and the table was just going to give out under them. It might have seemed bad, but he was almost hoping that it would happen. It didn’t.

“Do you want a drink?” Stiles asked Derek after the person had successfully gotten back to his feet, stumbling a little.

“Sure.”

Stiles stood up, squeezing through the mass of bodies that were “dancing”, drinking, talking louder than they needed to, and other things. He managed to get to the kitchen and grab two beers without any problem, but being Stiles, he managed to embarrass himself right in front of where he was sitting.

Stiles had just gotten back through the people that were packed into the room and had stopped beside the couch where Derek was so that he could let two drunken people who were trying to make out and walk, through. Just as they had passed, Stiles had moved and handed Derek the beer he had grabbed for him. What Stiles didn’t anticipate was that another drunken couple was going to try to come through at the same time that he was trying to get between the couch and the table. Stiles had wobbled and had tripped on the leg of the table. He knew he was going to go down, he could already feel the pain of his limbs getting caught in between his body and the floor, could already see the beer flinging out of his hand and busting and spilling all over the floor, and he could already see the red rug burn that would surely spread across his fragile, uncovered skin. All of the things he had anticipated after hitting the table didn’t happen though. At the last minute, right as Stiles had started going down, Derek had grabbed the boy by his arm and had tugged Stiles toward his own body. The end result had been Stiles falling into Derek’s lap.

Of course that had been the moment that Derek’s girlfriend had decided to show up. She shouldn’t have even been in town but she had talked to her parents and had decided to come home early so she could talk to Derek. She thought that she would be able to talk to her boyfriend and figure out what was going on with him and if he still wanted to continue their relationship. For as many parties she and Derek had gone to at this exact place, of course she had known exactly where to find him, and her timing couldn’t have been worse.

“Is this what you’ve been hiding from me Derek? What, are you gay now? Are you in a cute little relationship with your roommate when you have a girlfriend?”

Until she had spoken, Derek and Stiles had been laughing at their situation, but now, with what Elodie had said out in the open, both of their faces turned bright red, and Stiles flailed off of Derek, almost falling onto the floor.

“Elodie, that isn’t what happened,” Derek said, silently willing his cheeks to return to their normal color.

“Well that’s what it looks like Derek.”

There were tears streaking down her face as she ran from the party. The whole reason she had come home was to make it better, but this had made it worse.

As Elodie ran out, Stiles turned back to Derek. “Are you going to go after her?”

“I probably should, you know, so I can set this right,” Derek said, starting to get up off of the couch.

Stiles pushed him back. “No, let me go talk to her.”

Stiles ran in the direction that Derek’s girlfriend had taken off in, knowing that he needed to do this, but really not wanting to. He didn’t want to set Derek’s relationship with Elodie right, but he felt like he needed to. He ran outside of the place, knowing that was where she had gone, and almost didn’t see her. If he hadn’t heard her sniffle, he would have turned around and went back into the party. Maybe to try and find her, or maybe to just go back to Derek.

“Elodie, what you saw wasn’t what happened, I only fell on your boyfriend,” Stiles said, turning to where Elodie was sitting in the grass.

“Yeah, I’m sure. Derek probably told you to tell me that so the two of you can keep up your little hidden romance. I’ve heard that it’s better when there’s a little danger involved.”

Stiles sat down next to her. “No, he really didn’t. I came out here before he could tell me anything.”

“Why would you want to fix our relationship?” she asked, a shred of venom lacing her soft spoken words.

“Because I don’t want to see the two of you break up. He does love you.”

Elodie let out a humorless laugh, one that she didn’t look capable of using. “He probably loves you more at this point.”

“We aren’t even together, and he isn’t even into guys. Why would you think we’re together?”

“I’ve seen the way he looks at you Stiles; you must be blind if you don’t see it. And you aren’t very good at hiding how you feel about him either.”

“We aren’t together.”

“You should go back in, I think I’m going to go back to my parents’ house and pretend this didn’t happen until I come back to school.”

The two of them stood up, Stiles waiting until Elodie got up. Elodie started walking away, in what Stiles assumed was the direction of where she parked, so Stiles started walking back to the party, even though he didn’t really want to go back in there anymore.

“Hey Stiles,” Elodie said, making Stiles turn back around.

The expression on the girl’s face was hurt and even in the dim light Stiles could see the streaks of makeup and dried tears going down her cheeks. “You guys aren’t dating yet, and Derek just hasn’t admitted to liking guys.”

Before Stiles could say anything, Elodie walked away, fast enough that Stiles knew better than to call out to her.

Stiles went back into the party, but only to get Derek. He didn’t want to be in there anymore.

…

After the disaster of a party, Stiles and Derek headed back to their dorm room. All Derek had wanted to do was go to bed, so Stiles let him do that while he headed to the grocery store. It didn’t seem suspicious when he told Derek where he was going because the two of them needed some things from there anyway. What Derek didn’t know was that Stiles was also getting supplies for his next dastardly deed. Added to the normal things they needed, Stiles grabbed a bag of zip ties. Once he made sure he had everything, he paid and left the store.

When he got back to the dorm room, Derek was fast asleep. The guy could sleep through anything, even Stiles tripping into the room, slamming the door, and swearing up a storm as he tried to make his way through their room and over to the mini fridge they had. He figured if the guy could sleep through that, doing what he was about to do wouldn’t wake him up either.

After taking care of all the regular supplies, Stiles grabbed the bag of zip ties he bought and ripped them open. He took about ten of the ties in one hand and grabbed the pair of scissors they had in the room in the other. Stiles walked over to Derek’s bed, feeling very thankful that Derek had already thrown his covers off. If he hadn’t, Stiles would have had to try to get them off of him and if Derek had woken up, that would have been awkward. So Stiles was glad that Derek was a heavy sleeper and that he got really warm and threw the blankets off.

Once Stiles was next to Derek’s bed, he moved Derek’s legs so that they were close together. He then took a zip tie and tied it around one of Derek’s ankles. When he tied one around the other ankle, he made sure to slip it through the other zip tie. After the zip ties were tied around Derek’s ankles, Stiles took another one of the zip ties and tied the handle of the scissors together so even if Derek got to the scissors, he wouldn’t be able to use them.

After Stiles took care of the extra zip ties, and put the scissors back where they had been, he set the alarm on his phone to eight o’clock. He didn’t exactly want to get up at that time, but he knew Derek wouldn’t be up until around ten and Stiles definitely didn’t want to be around when Derek awoke to find his ankles tied together and no way to undo them.

…

The next morning, the moment Stiles’ phone went off, he was awake, grabbing his glasses, and running from the room. He had decided he would spend some time in the gym, and wouldn’t come back until around eleven. When he did come back, Derek was lying in bed, messing around on his phone.

The look he gave Stiles was murderous. “Would you take these damn things off of me?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little sadder than the rest. The death of Claudia Stilinski is talked about heavily, and Stiles experiences a panic attack.

The anniversary of Claudia Stilinski’s death had always been hard for the two Stilinski men that she left behind. They had started a tradition of going to her grave first thing in the morning and leaving a bouquet of her favorite flowers, and then sitting alone the minute they got back home. The two do not know how the second part started, but that was what happened. Stiles would sit in his room, cocooned in blankets and trying not to think about the last few months of his mother’s life, and the Sheriff would sit at the table in the kitchen, downing drink after drink, also trying to forget the last few months of his wife’s life. The two tried valiantly to think of all of the happy times they had had with the woman, but by the end of the day, her death consumed them and that was all they were able to think about.

The day after, the two would pretend that the day before had been just a normal day.

The year that Stiles started college was the first year that the two would be alone for the anniversary of Claudia’s death. The Sheriff had asked Stiles if he wanted to come home on the day, but Stiles had had tests that day and had told his father that he would be unable to. His stomach had dropped the moment he had told his father that he would be unable to make it home for that day. Not making it home meant that he would not be able to visit his mother’s grave, and he would not be able to leave her flowers. If knowing that did anything, it made Stiles’ tests even harder to concentrate on.

The one thing that he was happy for was that Derek had practice in the afternoon and would be out of the dorm room. That meant that at least the second part of Stiles’ tradition would be fulfilled.

On the day of, Stiles had only two classes, so by two o’clock, he was back at his dorm room. After he threw his backpack onto the ground, he turned off his phone, and changed into a pair of sweatpants. Then he grabbed a couple blankets he had brought and threw them on the bed. When he climbed onto the bed, he wrapped all of the blankets around himself so that the only thing that was visible was the top of his head. If anyone walked into the room, they would probably think that no one was in the room and that Stiles had just left his bed unmade when he had left for class that morning.

Stiles breathed in and out, steadying his breath, and preventing a panic attack. He knew by the end of the night, he would probably experience one, but was trying to keep that for later. Preferably when Derek was still gone, but later. Once the current panic eased, Stiles began to think of his mother. She was a beautiful woman, and Stiles would always think that about his mother. She had had wavy brown hair that came down to her mid back and deep brown eyes only a few shades darker than Stiles’ own. Stiles could remember that whenever she cleaned she would pull her hair back into a pony tail and would dance around while cleaning. She never did normal tasks the boring way. When Stiles had been little, she would get him to help her do anything just by singing and dancing and just being silly. He had loved spending time with his mom.

Claudia had also been the one to start almost all of the traditions he had had during his childhood. She had started the three of them going to a diner for breakfast every Sunday, she had started the birthday tradition of eating cake and ice cream for breakfast, and she had started the weekly tradition of going to the police station after picking Stiles up from school to take her husband out for dinner. There had been so many things that she had started. After she died, Stiles and his dad had gone through a period of time where all of those things were too painful to continue doing, but after about a year, the two just decided to take them back up. So every Sunday the two went for breakfast at the same diner, where Stiles made sure his dad ate a healthier meal than he used to, and they always bought cakes for each other’s birthdays so they could eat them for breakfast, and Stiles started going right from school to the police station so they could go for dinner. It had been a little difficult getting back into the habit of doing those things, especially when those things had been started by Claudia, but once they got past the first few times, everything was back to normal.

Stiles wished now that he could go back home, even for a few weeks, so he could do some of those things again. Maybe this year he would send his dad a small cake on his birthday. Maybe during his breaks he would get his dad from work and go to dinner. Maybe one weekend he would surprise his dad by coming home just so they could have Sunday Stilinski Family Breakfast.

Also maybe this year he would call his dad later so that he wasn’t totally alone for the rest of the day. It would make sense to make sure that his dad wasn’t going to drink himself to death. He may have stopped over drinking on normal days, but the anniversary of his wife’s death did things to him.

Stiles wondered absently if his father had even gone into work today. He was genuinely surprised that he had made it through school today. He had received a few weird looks from Boyd, Erica, and Isaac, but he had chosen to ignore them. Just the looks, not his friends in general. And since the three hadn’t said anything, Stiles hadn’t felt like he had to tell them exactly what had him so distracted. That was one reason that he missed Scott. Scott would have known what was going on, but he couldn’t blame his new friends for not knowing. It wasn’t like Stiles had told them.

Stiles curled into a ball, bringing the blankets up so he had them pulled right under his chin, and the blankets rubbed softly against his cheek. He then fell asleep.

…

_A little boy with cropped brown hair was running around the backyard, squealing in delight as his parents chased after him. It was obvious that the two adults were running slower than they could have, but the little boy didn’t notice. All he cared was that if he didn’t keep running, his parents would get him and he would lose the game. The little boy wasn’t quite sure what the game was, but he knew he would lose if his parents caught up with him._

_The man and the woman chased their son, smiles lighting up at the way the boy laughed. His laugh was infectious, and the couple thought it was so nice that their boy was so happy. The two loved him so very much, and that was obvious by the way that they smiled at him._

_The little boy zipped past a tree and grabbed onto the sides of the trunk, hiding his small body behind it._

_His father leaned against a tree that was near the one his son was hiding behind. The boy’s father was gasping for breath, an over exaggeration, but the little boy didn’t notice. He smiled wickedly at his parents. “Come on mommy, come on dad, come get me!”_

_“Stiles,” the woman said, smiling gently at her son, “Don’t you want to come get us?”_

_“No,” Stiles said, shaking his head vigorously, “I haven’t been caught yet.”_

_“We’ll buy you ice cream if you come to us,” his father said._

_Stiles ducked behind the tree, contemplating his options. “What kind of ice cream?” he asked, still hiding behind the tree._

_“Any kind you want.”_

_Before all of the words were out of Stiles’ father’s mouth, the little boy was running for his parents, smile on his face, and laughter ringing in the air. His parents picked him up and carried him inside, all three of them smiling._

...

When Stiles woke up, there was a smile on his face. What he had dreamed hadn’t only been a dream, something like that had actually happened. Almost every time he had gotten his parents to go outside with him the three of them ended up playing tag, and the game always ended in Stiles getting ice cream. What Stiles hadn’t been expecting when he woke up though, was Derek to be walking around the room.

“What are you doing here?” Stiles asked, voice still a little groggy from his nap.

“Well hello to you too Stiles,” Derek said, putting his bag down next to his bed. “Coach gave us a short practice today.”

Stiles nodded. “What are you planning on doing now?”

“Uh, I don’t know. What are you planning on doing?”

Stiles didn’t know why, but being asked that question just brought all memory of what day it was. He flopped over on his bed and pulled the blankets over his head. “I’m not moving out of this bed,” he said, the words reaching Derek a little garbled because of the blankets covering Stiles’ face.

“You’re not moving from the bed?”

“No.”

“Well why not?”

Stiles didn’t say anything.

“Are you going to tell me?”

“No.”

“Can I guess?”

“You can try.”

“Will you tell me if I get it right?”

“I guess so.”

“Does it have to do with your parents?” Derek asked after thinking about it a moment.

“Yes.”

“Your father?”

“No.”

“Your mother?”

Stiles paused. “Yes.”

Derek thought about everything Stiles had every told him about his mother. This ended up being pretty much nothing. Derek thought Stiles mentioned that his mother had passed away, but that was it. On that information, there was only thing that Derek could think of that would make Stiles want to stay in bed and not move.

“Is this the day she died?”

Stiles didn’t say anything and this time Derek knew it was because he had gotten the right answer. Derek didn’t know personally what it was like to lose a close family member, so he didn’t really know  what Stiles was going through. He did want to make sure the boy was okay though.

“Are you going to be okay?” Derek asked.

Stiles pulled the blankets from over his face. “Yeah, I’ll be fine tomorrow.”

Derek moved over to Stiles’ bed and sat down on the edge. “You won’t be okay until tomorrow?”

“I’ll act like today was just another day and not the day that she died.”

“Was there anything you and your dad used to do?”

“Yeah, we would visit her grave and leave a bouquet of her favorite flowers. Then when we would get home I would curl up in my bed and my dad would sit down in the kitchen and drink.”

“You didn’t do anything together?”

“No, not really. We didn’t really talk about her on the day she died. We talk about her on other days, like regular days, but days like her birthday and mother’s day are just a little bit better than today.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No, not really.”

Derek stood back up, awkwardly standing there, looking at Stiles’ back. “Why don’t we get out of here.”

Stiles turned around. “Any do what? I don’t really want to socialize right now.”

“That’s fine,” Derek put his hand out for Stiles to take, “We can take a drive in my car and you can tell me about her.”

Stiles tentatively took Derek’s hand and let Derek pull him up out of the bed. “I’m bringing my blanket,” Stiles said, wrapping one of the blankets around his shoulders and walking out the door.

On the way out to Derek’s car, the pair definitely got some looks. Most of the students who saw them wondered why Stiles was walking around in his pajamas and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. The students also wondered why Derek was walking with him. It wasn’t odd to see the two together, people just didn’t know what to think about the entire situation.

When the two got to Derek’s car, Stiles climbed into the passenger seat, wrapping his blanket around himself so he was fully covered and he could still buckle his seat belt. Derek climbed into the driver’s seat and immediately set out.

“So, what did she look like?” Derek asked.

“My dad always said I looked a lot like her. But then my mom always said I looked like my dad. I don’t know who’s right but, I guess that doesn’t matter. She had brown hair, like mine, and brown eyes like mine, but hers were a little darker. Whenever she smiled, the entire room lit up. It was hard not to smile when my mom smiled. She was hardly ever unhappy. She was shorter than I am now, but I don’t know how tall she was.”

“You loved her a lot.”

“Yeah, I didn’t get the chance to go through the ‘I hate my parents’ stage. My mom died when I was eleven and I was always too scared that I would lose my dad to ever hate him. I annoy the shit out of him, but I could never hate him.”

“That’s a good thing though.”

“Yeah, it just sucked that I had to lose a parent in order not to hate my parents.”

Derek nodded, feeling really unsure of how to continue the conversation. He really hoped that Stiles would find something more to say. And he did.

“You’re probably wondering how she died.”

“Only if you’re willing to tell me.”

“She had cancer,” Stiles said, squirming in his blanket cocoon. “The last few months of her life was spent in the hospital. I spent so much time at the hospital, just spending time with her. I went right from school to the hospital every night, and the nurses would help me do my homework. Most nights my dad had to drag me back home so I would get enough sleep to go to school the next day. On weekends we would both spend the nights at the hospital.” Stiles started to choke up, could feel the panic rising in his chest again. His breathing became deeper, and he desperately tried to calm himself down. He didn’t want to have a panic attack in front of Derek.

Derek looked over at Stiles, concern written across his face. “Are you okay Stiles?” he asked.

Stiles nodded.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was there when my mom died.” Stiles said, taking up a faraway look, like he was being transported back to when his mother died.

“Where was your dad?”

“There was a large crash and my dad had to go and check it out. He had just left the hospital and my mom grabbed my hand and told me to take care of him. She laughed and said that he had never had the best diet and he had always had to be nagged about eating healthy. She wanted me to make sure that he ate healthy so he would be around with me for a long time, even though she knew she wasn’t going to be. She kept telling me things that she wanted to make sure I did, like she knew that she wasn’t going to live past that day. There were things like make sure to talk to my grandma once a week, because my mom was the only one of my grandmother’s children that had stayed close, and she didn’t want her mom to be lonely. And she told me to make sure my dad didn’t drink too much, and to make sure I took my medicine every day, and not to push my friends away after she was gone. When she told me that, I finally realized why she was telling me these things. It had taken awhile for my eleven year old ADHD brain to realize what she was talking about, but once I did, I kept telling her to stop, that she wasn’t leaving me yet. But she just smiled and told me she loved me.”

Stiles paused and frowned. His brown eyes were still unfocused, and he seemed to be thinking more about what was going on in his brain than what he was telling Derek.

“What happened after that?”

“She closed her eyes and just went to sleep. Until her heart monitor went flat, I didn’t realize what was happening. The doctors told me that it hadn’t hurt when she left, and that she wasn’t in pain anymore.”

“And your dad was still gone?”

Stiles nodded. “He told me later that he had stayed at the crash because there was a woman that was stuck in her car and her odds didn’t look very good. She had asked my dad if he had wanted to leave and be with her, but he hadn’t known that the woman was talking about my mom. By the time he got to the hospital, she was dead. The doctors had moved me out to the waiting room.”

“And that’s where your dad found you?”

“Yeah. He said he had been really scared because I didn’t respond when he first got there. I just sat there, staring at the floor tiles for about ten minutes.”

“And then how did you react?”

“He took me home and we climbed into bed. I haven’t seen my dad cry since that day.”

The two went silent. Derek didn’t know what it was like to lose someone close, and he didn’t know how to respond to someone who had. None of his friends had ever lost a parent and none of them would have told him this much anyway. Talking to someone like this was a new experience for Derek. At this point, he really wished he could be more help, that he could say more than ‘I’m sorry’, but he couldn’t.

“We can go back to the dorm if you want,” Stiles said after sitting in silence for a while.

“Whatever you want.”

“Keep driving then.”

Derek kept driving until Stiles fell asleep, curled up into the passenger seat. He left Stiles asleep until he had the car parked back at the school.

“Hey Stiles, we’re back.”

Stiles nodded, uncurling himself, stretching and pushing the blanket away from him, and revealing a strip of pale skin where his shirt rode up about half an inch. Derek wanted to reach out, to push the shirt back down, but when he thought of that, the panic that rose in his own chest was enough to keep him immobilized in his seat.

The minute the two were back in their room, Stiles turned his phone back on. He had a few texts and calls from his dad, like he had expected, and the same text he had received from Scott on the anniversary of his mother’s death since they had both gotten phones.

_I know what day it is Stiles, I hope it went okay_

Once Stiles read it, he smiled a little, and shut his phone back off. He fell asleep the minute his head hit the pillow.

…

After a day like the one Stiles had the day before, he needed a bit of comic relief. Both his dad and Scott, and some years even Scott’s mom, had commented on how the day after he was always sillier than normal. That was just how Stiles dealt with it; he grieved the day of, and went super weird the day after. Most of his teachers hadn’t figured out the connection, and had just assumed that he had taken too much Adderall that morning.

So Stiles was back to scheming for prank’s the day after. He was pretty proud of the one he had come up with, mainly because he knew it was going to be really weird, and it depended on Derek going somewhere that weekend. Stiles assumed the boy would end up going to his girlfriend’s dorm, as long as they were still dating.

“Hey dad,” Stiles said, lounging on his bed, holding his cell phone in between in shoulder and ear.

“What do you want Stiles?”

“Well I love you too.”

“Out with it.”

“Okay okay, how bad would you react if I asked you to send me two walkie talkies?”

“What do you need walkie talkies for Stiles?”

“Didn’t I tell you that I was pranking my roommate?”

The Sheriff sighed. “No, why are you pranking him?”

“Because I need to. The world will thank me for it.”

“Okay, tell me the rest.”

“I’m going to put one in Derek’s bag and wait until he goes somewhere. Then I’m going to start making noises into the one that I have.”

“You’re not going to stop bugging me about it until I do, are you?”

“Thanks dad!”

“Stiles-”

“Alright well I have homework to do, love you dad, bye.”

Stiles couldn’t stop grinning, glad that the first part of his plan was set in motion. All he had to do now was wait for his dad to send them, because he knew that he would. After all, his dad was right; he wouldn’t stop annoying his father until he was sure the man had sent the walkie talkies. He knew they probably wouldn’t come in the mail for a couple days, which put a damper on things, but unless Stiles wanted to spend money on something that he had access to at home, he was going to have to wait.

He would have to wait for Derek to go somewhere with his bag anyway.

The minute Derek walked into the dorm room, Stiles asked, “So are you going to Elodie’s this weekend?”

“Why?” Derek asked, doing that eyebrow raising thing that he always did.

“I was just wondering. I obviously wanted to throw a party, get drunk, and wreck the place.”

“Go ahead. I think I am. I mean, we aren’t dating anymore, but she wants to talk to me about something.”

“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”

“No, but as long as she doesn’t accuse me of being gay, it should go fine.”

Stiles’ neck heated up at the comment. “What would you say if she said you were?”

It was Derek’s turn to blush this time. “Um, say that I’m not.”

The two boys went silent, the conversation suddenly becoming extremely awkward.

“Well, I’m going to get lunch, you want something?” Stiles said, jumping up from is bed.

“The usual.”

Stiles didn’t answer, he just walked out of the room as fast as he possibly could, and getting away from that awkward conversation as fast as he possibly could.

…

The walkie talkies came in the mail three days later, a Friday, which was perfect since Derek was going to Elodie’s that night, after his football game. As soon as Stiles grabbed the box they were in, he ran it up to his room before anyone could ask what it was, and hid it under his bed.

A few minutes after he had gotten everything situated so the box wasn’t showing and neither was anything else, Derek walked into the room.

“Is this your last game yet?”

Derek made a face at Stiles which looked like he was trying to convey ‘how are you this stupid’ with just his face. “This is only the fifth game Stiles.”

“So it isn’t your last game?”

“No, we still have a few more.”

“A few like three or a few like ten?”

“Depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“How good we are.”

“Well how good are you?”

“Good. Don’t you have someone else to annoy?”

“Nope.”

“What about your other friends?”

“They aren’t as fun to annoy as you are.”

Derek rolled his eyes and walked into the bathroom.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a shower.”

“Why would you take a shower when you’re just going to get dirt and sweat all over you later?”

“Because I want to relax,” Derek said, looking pointedly at Stiles.

Stiles put his hands up in surrender. “Okay, I get it. Go take your relaxing shower.”

“Don’t follow me into the bathroom.”

Derek said the comment as an afterthought, and didn’t think anything about it, didn’t think about how Stiles would react because he didn’t think he would react any worse than he normally did when Derek made fun of him. It was good for Stiles then that Derek had his back turned and didn’t see the red blush take over Stiles’ cheeks.

Stiles waited about five minutes after Derek had turned on the shower to get the box back out from under his bed. He took the scissors and opened the box, rolling his eyes when he found a note in his dad’s handwriting that said ‘ _You better have been telling me the truth about what you’re going to do with these. I don’t want to be associated if you get in trouble for pranking your roommate.’_ It figured that his dad would be more worried about being associated with Stiles when he got in trouble. Not that Stiles could blame him since that was what led to his dad losing his job that one time.

It didn’t take long for Stiles to take out one of the walkie talkies and put it in the bottom of Derek’s bag where he wouldn’t find it. Stiles was thankful for that since even when Derek wanted to relax, his showers weren’t very long.

By the time Derek was out of the bathroom, fully clothed again, Stiles was splayed out on his bed, holding his phone over his face, playing a game.

“I’m heading out. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Derek said, picking up the bag and walking out of the room.

Stiles smirked as his roommate walked out of the room, completely unsuspecting of what was going to happen.

…

After the game, Derek was really tired. His coach had played him through most of the game, without giving him much of a break. He was really rethinking his decision to spend the night with Elodie. All he wanted to do was go to his own room, take a long shower, and climb into bed. By going to Elodie’s, not only did he know that he wasn’t going to be able to do what he would have in his own room, but he also knew that she was going to want to talk. He had an idea of what she was going to want to talk about, and it was the relationship she thought he was in with Stiles. That was not something he wanted to talk about. That was something he didn’t even want to think about. He wanted to pretend that ever since Elodie had asked if he was gay at that party, he hadn’t started over analyzing everything he said to Stiles. Every time he talked to his roommate he wondered if what he was saying sounded like he was in love with the boy. Every time they went out to grab fast food for dinner, he wondered if that was considered dating. Every time he spent time alone with Stiles, he wondered if he acted like he wanted something more to happen. The more he thought about those things, the more he realized that he did want to sound like he liked the boy, he did want to go on dates, and he did want more to happen when they spent time alone. He did not want to tell Elodie or Stiles that though.

As soon as Derek had gotten dressed in a pair of sweats and a clean t-shirt, he had pulled his phone out of his pocket, planning on calling Elodie and telling her that he was just going to go home after the game. Before he could even begin dialing her phone number, the girl came running up the sidewalk toward him, big smile on her face.

“Even though we aren’t dating anymore,” she said, pulling Derek into a hug, “I wanted to congratulate you on your win.”

“The team’s win.”

“Whatever. You’re still coming to mine right?” she asked, her brown eyes shining.

Derek began to tell her that he was going to go back to his dorm, had every intention of telling her that he wasn’t going to her dorm, but at the look on her face, he couldn’t do it. He let out a soft sigh. “Yeah.”

“Good, we have things to talk about.”

As Elodie dragged Derek away from the football field and closer to her dorm, he couldn’t help thinking that his ex-girlfriend was going to make him talk about his feelings, and he was going to hate it.

When the two got to Elodie’s dorm room, she pushed Derek into the room first, taking the bag out of his hand and placing it beside he bed.

“What are you going to make me talk about?” Derek asked.

“You know exactly what I’m going to make you talk about. I do deserve an explanation Derek.”

“I have no explanation for you,” Derek was going to say more, but before he could a soft meow came from where Derek’s bag was.

“Did you get a cat?” Derek asked, wondering how since there wasn’t any pets allowed in the building.

“No, did you? It’s coming from your bag.”

“What?”

Elodie grabbed Derek’s bag, which then meowed again, and handed it to him.

Derek opened the bag, taking everything out until he got to the bottom. At the very bottom of his bag was a walkie talkie. When Derek pulled it out of his bag, it meowed again. At the sound, he realized he knew exactly who was making the sound, and rolled his eyes.

“Stiles must have hidden this in my bag yesterday,” he said.

Elodie rolled her eyes. “Of course he would put something in your bag.”

Derek ignored the girl, holding the walkie talkie up to his face, pushing the button, and talking into it. With a sigh Derek said, “Real mature Stiles,” and put the walkie talkie back into his bag.


	6. Chapter 6

When someone pissed Elodie off, she had a special look that she gave the person. Usually, she used it during a fight, or a conversation, that she was having with this person, to show her distaste. The look combined a glare with a look that obviously said “you can say whatever you want but I already have my mind made up and nothing you will ever do or say is going to convince me otherwise”. Derek had never received this look, but had seen it used on countless people. Now that he was on the receiving end of it, he understood why all of those people had come pretty close to just cowering in fear. 

Derek looked up at his ex-girlfriend, meeting her stare with one of his own. “Elodie, there's nothing to say.”

Instead of answering, Elodie just put both hands on her hips and raised both of her eyebrows. 

“Why are you so convinced that Stiles and I are dating?”

Elodie rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated sigh. “You must be daft if you don't see the signs that you have been giving off all along.”

“There have been no signs, Stiles and I are just roommates.”

“Alright, let's suppose that's true, if the two of you are 'just roommates' like you claim to be, then you want to be more than 'just roommates' with him.”

“I don't.”

“You're lying.”

“I'm not Elodie. Whatever you have been seeing is wrong.”

Derek was lying and he felt terrible for it, but it had to be done. Ever since Elodie had made him begin to question whether he liked Stiles more than a roommate should or not, Derek had thought of the pros and cons of people finding out. The top pros were he could be with who he wanted to be with and he wouldn't have to hide behind his relationship with Elodie. The top cons were that people would hate him, he would be hated by his own family, and that he would surely be kicked off the football team. He had imagined every possible scenario, good and bad, of how him coming out would be perceived, and he was more convinced that people would hate him than he was that people would be okay with it. He couldn't imagine being hated by anyone openly, especially not his family, and that's what killed him the most. He didn't want people to hate him because he would rather date Stiles than Elodie. By lying to Elodie about him not wanting to be more than friends with Stiles, he was protecting himself from a world of hate. 

“And you're still lying. Look at the facts Derek,” Elodie said, sitting next to Derek at the edge of the bed, “Ever since you met Stiles, we've been spending less time together. You both alternately go out and buy lunch or dinner for the two of you, or you guys are going to grab some fast food for dinner, or Stiles already made your coffee, which you don't even really like.”

“I don't like how you drink it, he makes it different.”

“You mean he drinks it black. That doesn't matter Derek, he could make it the same way I do and you wouldn't say a thing. Face it, you're whipped.”

“I'm not whipped Elodie,” Derek said, scrunching his face a bit, “it's called being friends with someone.”

Elodie shook her head at him. “No honey, it's called I think you're great, wanna fuck?”

“Why do you have to be so crude about it? I don't want to fuck him.”

A knowing look took over Elodie's face. “You don't now, but you will later.”

“What can I say that will make you believe that I don't want to date him?” Derek asked, looking over at Elodie. 

“There's nothing you can say Derek. I know that you want to, why won't you just admit it?”

“I don't want to.”

“So you do? Want to date him I mean.”

Derek stayed silent. The moment the words 'I don't want to' had passed through his lips; he had known that it was the wrong answer. It might not have been an outright confession, but it was close enough. Instead of telling Elodie that he didn't want to date Stiles, like he should have, he told her that he didn't want to admit to the fact that he did. If he had only thought of how to respond to what she said, it would've been fine. Instead he had to talk before he thought it out, and even though it could've been him saying he didn't want to date Stiles, both of them knew it wasn't. 

Elodie wrapped her arms around Derek. “What are you afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit, if you weren’t scared of something there would be nothing keeping you from being in a relationship with Stiles. If there wasn’t something that you were scared of, we wouldn’t have still been in a relationship after a week of school.”

“Elodie, I didn’t even realize that I felt different towards Stiles until you showed up to that party and saw Stiles sitting on me.”

Elodie grinned. “Now we are getting somewhere. Now you can answer my other question, what are you scared of.”

“Nothing.”

“Oh my God Derek, stop. Do you want me to keep going with things that you would be doing right now if you weren’t scared of something?”

“How did you feel when you first thought I was into guys?” Derek asked, wording his question in a way that made it possible for him to step right around saying a specific word.

“Um, I was upset because you were my boyfriend,” Elodie said, giving Derek a confused look as if she wasn’t quite sure where his line of questioning was going to lead.

“That was all?”

Elodie nodded. “Yeah, I don’t care if you’re gay.”

Derek cringed. Elodie had just used the one word that Derek wanted to avoid. He was okay admitting that he liked guys, or a specific one anyway, but he didn’t want to label it yet.

When Derek cringed, Elodie seemed to get what was going on. A look passed over her face that showed that she didn’t need Derek to tell her what he was afraid of. “You’re afraid people are going to hate you if you tell them that you like guys.”

“Not everyone.”

“Your family?” Elodie asked, really already knowing the answer.

Derek nodded.

“Don’t you have that one cousin or something that is into the same gender?”

“Uh, yeah,”

“And does any of your family hate them?”

“No.”

“Then they won’t hate you.”

“That’s easy to say Elodie.”

“Don’t be so negative Derek, your family loves you, whether you take me home or Stiles home, they’ll always love you.”

Derek turned toward Elodie and wrapped his arms around her. “You know, I’ll always love you.”

“Just not the same way.”

“Yeah, not the same way.”

Elodie let herself be wrapped in Derek’s arms for a few minutes, but had to push him away since she knew that eventually he would leave and he would go to Stiles. She might as well have been the one to finally push him into it instead of having him do it himself. “Go tell Stiles that you want to fuck him.”

Derek got up off of Elodie’s bed at her little push, and leaned down to kiss her forehead. “Thank you,” he said, and then grabbed his bag so he could go back to his own dorm for the night.

…

When Derek got back to his dorm, it was late, so he wasn’t surprised to find that Stiles was asleep. Stiles’ form was all over the small mattress. His head was somehow still on the pillow, but his limbs were everywhere, as if he had been flailing in his sleep. It was a miracle that the blankets were still coating his body, but they were. In fact, the blankets were curled around Stiles, tucked under him slightly, so the air probably didn’t get under the blankets and cool his skin the way it would have if the blankets weren’t under his body somewhat.

Derek made his way into the room, taking in Stiles’ sleeping form, and shaking his head to himself. How was it that the first boy that Derek liked was someone like Stiles? The boy was crazy, always keeping people on their toes by his sarcastic humor. Stiles was always ready to debate with Derek, even when the topics were some of the dumbest things, and that was something Derek liked. Stiles wasn’t insane and annoying, he was crazy and intellectual.

Derek’s plan now was to do what he had wanted to do as soon as the football game had gotten over. Now that he was in his own dorm he was going to take a nice, hot shower and then go to bed. After putting his bag down, he started walking toward the bathroom, but before he could get there, Stiles flailed around on his bed, flinging all of his blankets right off of the bed.

Derek rolled his eyes, fonder than he meant to, and walked over to the side of Stiles' bed. Too many mornings Stiles had woken up with the blankets on the floor, complaining because he had gotten cold in the middle of the night. Derek figured that putting them back on him wouldn't hurt, and would probably mean that Stiles wouldn't complain about it the next morning. So Derek grabbed all of Stiles' blankets that had been thrown on the floor and took them one by one, laying them down on Stiles gently. The boy didn't move, didn't do anything to show that he noticed Derek putting the blankets back on him.

Hoping that Stiles really was fast asleep, and that he wasn't going to wake up, Derek sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Stiles. He grabbed the edge of the blanket that he had placed over Stiles' shoulder and pulled it down far enough so he could see Stiles' face. "This is really dumb to do, since you could just be pretending to be asleep right now, but I might as well tell you while you're asleep, since I probably won't ever do it when you're awake."

Derek bent down, getting close to Stiles' face. "Even though you're annoying and dumb and really impulsive sometimes and you've been slowly turning my life into a living hell since I met you, I like you more than I should. I should think that you're my friend, not that I want to kiss you. And I've thought that before. Ever since Elodie said what she did at the party, I've been wondering. And now that I talked to her about it, in ready to admit that maybe I do like you."

Derek sighed, praying that what he just said had fallen on deaf ears, and leaned down to kiss Stiles' temple. When he was standing next to Stiles' bed, he shook his head at himself. "I really shouldn't have done that."

Stiles, who had been awake the entire time, watched as Derek retreated into the bathroom, trying not to have a heart attack of his own over what had just happened. 

...

The next day was another day where the two had nothing planned. Neither of them had class to go to, there wasn't a football game, and Derek didn't have a girlfriend. Since they had woken up, Derek first and then Stiles an hour later, they had both been a little awkward toward each other. Derek was feeling weird about what he had done the night before when he came back to the dorm, and Stiles was feeling weird about the fact that Derek shared his feelings. Both of them had spent a good amount of time the night before analyzing what had happened. When Derek had stepped foot in the shower, he had almost started hyperventilating when he realized that Stiles really could have been awake. From that point on, all he could think about was how his roommate would probably hate him and would probably ask to be moved. Stiles on the other hand, was elated. All through school he had had his heart set on one girl: Lydia Martin. It had been obvious to everyone, including Stiles, that she had never liked Stiles the way he liked her. When Stiles had seen her and Jackson Whittemore confess their love for each other after an emotional breakup, Stiles had finally figured out that she was not the girl for him. And when he had gotten a crush on Derek, he had figured it was going to play out the same way it had with Lydia. So sue him if he was a little excited. 

Neither of them knew how to react to the other though, so that meant that as soon as Stiles had woken up, the two were skirting around each other, only talking when they had to. 

"What do you have planned for today?" Stiles asked, knowing that the silence needed to be filled.

"Nothing."

"Nothing nothing, or I'm not going to tell you Stiles nothing?"

Derek looked at Stiles, eyebrows raised. "Nothing nothing."

"Okay, okay," Stiles said, raising his hands in mock surrender. "Is there anything you wanted to do?"

One of Derek's eyebrows went back down, but the other stayed raised. "Are you trying to tell me there's something that you want to do?"

"Nope."

The two went back to the awkward silence that had been filling the room since they had woken up. Neither of them knew what to say, didn't know what was acceptable to say, so they both kept quiet. They both knew though, that keeping silent wasn't one of Stiles' strong suits. If that meant he was going to say something that he regretted, well so be it. 

"Do you like me?" Stiles blurted out, having the sudden urge to cover his mouth with both of his hands the moment the words were out. 

"Uh, yeah, I like you," Derek said, feeling his heart start beating so fast that Derek was worried that it would beat right out of his chest. 

"No," Stiles said, pulling at the leg of his pajama pants, "Do you like me like you would want to have an intense make out session right now?"

Derek was speechless as he felt a blush creep up from his neck to his cheeks. That moment was the moment that he realized Stiles really had been awake last night. Derek felt so stupid for not actually checking. He knew there were ways to know if someone was faking the fact that they were asleep, and he had completely skipped over them. He had assumed that Stiles was fully asleep because of the late hour, not hadn’t even taken into account the fact that Stiles almost always stayed up really late. There were signs that Stiles had been awake, and Derek had looked right past them, now he had to face what he did, or lie. 

"Uh, no," Derek said, hesitating more than he had meant to. 

Stiles stood up quickly. "You’re lying!" He yelled. 

"What?"

"I heard what you said last night Derek. I was awake, don't try to lie to me now."

"Okay fine Stiles, I like you," Derek said. He was standing now, facing Stiles. This was the first moment when Derek really realized that Stiles was just about as tall as he was. There was barely even an inch of difference in their height. 

Stiles used the little height difference as an advantage. Before Derek could start stuttering out an explanation, Stiles leaned in toward the other male and pressed their lips together. The kiss was nothing special, just a chaste touch of lips. 

"That was the first time I've ever kissed a guy," Stiles said, sitting down on the edge of his bed. 

A blush crept up Derek's neck and brushed across his cheeks. He sat down next to Stiles. "Me too."

"We should probably talk about that."

"Uh, maybe."

"Well I would've just told you that I liked you but that would've taken too long."

"So you went for the lets smash our lips together approach?"

"Yeah that was my best idea."

"Okay."

Stiles got down onto the floor, sitting against the end of his bed, and patted the spot in front of him. "Come on Derek, we're going to have a heart to heart."

Derek sighed but sat down in front of Stiles, also crossing his legs. "Why do we need to have a heart to heart?"

"I need to know about you, and you need to know about me. We need to figure these things out."

"So you want this to be a thing?" Derek asked, raising his eyebrows. 

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, looking down at the floor. "Uh yeah, wasn't that apparent when I kissed you a few minutes ago?"

"Oh, okay."

"Okay, first girlfriend?"

"Um, her name was Paige."

"There's gotta be more than that Derek."

"Okay fine," Derek sighed, "She was in the band and I was an annoying little shithead. We met at school when she was practicing in the band room and me and some of my friends were playing with a basketball right outside of the band room. She came out to ask us to stop, and I had to try to show off by trying to get her to take the basketball away from me. She just ended up leaving."

Stiles tried to do the eyebrow thing, and failed miserably. "How did you two start dating then?"

"I obviously have massive amounts of charm Stiles. You hated me at first too."

Stiles waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Yeah, whatever. How long did you date?"

"About a year."

"And how did it end?"

"She didn't want to date anymore do we mutually ended it."

"She dumped your ass didn't she?" Stiles asked, filling the room with laughter. 

Derek chuckled. "Yeah, she dumped me." Derek paused, waiting for Stiles to ask a question. When he didn't, Derek asked his own. "Who was your first girlfriend?"

“Erica.”

Derek looked surprised. “You mean that blonde girl that you hang out with?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said, “She went to high school with me and we dated for a little while.”

“Were Boyd and Isaac her friends then?”

“Uh yeah, they also went to high school with me.”

“So I’m the only person you have become friends with here that didn’t go to high school with you?”

Stiles blushed. “Uh yeah, I guess so.”

“Alright, then how did you and Erica end up going out?”

“Um, since second grade I had had a crush on this girl in my class and I guess in sophomore year I kind of realized that the two of us were never going to go out, and when I finally gave up on her, I found out that Erica had had a crush on me for a long time.”

“And then you two started going out?”

“No,” Stiles said, pulling the word out, “Erica was evil. I had never noticed her before because she wasn’t really liked by anyone; almost everyone at school only took notice of her to make fun of her. She had epilepsy up until sophomore year, when her doctors found some medicine that took almost all of the seizures away. Then all of a sudden she went from this girl who tried to stay out of the spotlight by dressing in just regular clothes to this girl that everyone knew about and almost every guy wanted to bang. She started wearing short skirts and shirts that revealed a lot of skin, and everyone took notice. And she was evil, but she started talking to me and then we started going out.”

“And how did it end?”

“We thought we were going to separate colleges and didn’t want to try a long distance relationship.”

“You didn’t decide against ending it when you both ended up here?”

Stiles just shrugged. “Did you have any other girlfriends?”

“Two,” Derek said, “Kate and Jennifer. Kate was a lot older than me and turned out to be crazy. My parents didn’t like that I was in a relationship with her so I snuck around behind their backs. She ended up trying to burn down our house.”

“Damn, did she have a reason?”

“She thought we were werewolves.”

Stiles laughed, falling backwards and still laughing. When he managed to sit upright again, he chuckled one last time and said, “Okay, what about Jennifer?”

“She was okay, I broke up with her. She got a little clingy.”

Stiles nodded. “I didn’t have any other girlfriends so you don’t have to ask.”

“So we both have experience.”

“No,” Stiles said, chuckling at the awkward way that Derek had said that. “We have experience with women, and very little of it. I think that’s a little different than dating a guy. Did you have sex with any of them?”

“Kate and Jennifer.”

“That’s definitely going to be different,” Stiles said, and the room filled with an awkward silence. “Are we going to tell our families about this?”

“Our sex life?” Derek asked, eyes widening.

“No you idiot, us dating.”

“Oh uh, not over the phone.”

“So the next time we see them.”

“Right.”

Both of them nodded at the same time, standing from the spots they had been sitting in. Derek walked out of the door, wanting to get away from the conversation, after saying a quick goodbye to Stiles. Stiles smirked as the other boy walked out of the room, he had had no problem with how awkward that conversation was, and was sure there would be more in the future. Stiles figured he had just found another thing that would bug the shit out of Derek.

…

When Stiles and Derek had agreed not to tell either of their families about the fact that they were in a relationship until they saw their family in the flesh, both of them had silently hoped that they wouldn’t have to say it first. The main pro to not having to tell their family first was that they would be able to use whatever the other person said. So if one of them said, “This is Derek/Stiles and we’re in a relationship”, the second person could use the same line. If they had to be the first one to say it, they would have to figure out what to say on their own. That was the main reason Derek didn’t want to tell his family first. He had never been good at telling anyone about important things so it was more likely that he would panic and just say that Stiles was his friend. Stiles didn’t seem to have any problem talking, but he just didn’t want to have to say it first. He ended up being the loser in that case.

The two of them had spent the entire day sitting around their dorm room, studying, doing homework, and slowly working on their relationship. The two had talked, telling stories about their childhood and talking about their families, and they had kissed multiple more times, not quite getting to ‘making out’, and Stiles had tried going up to Derek and just touching him while he was doing his homework. Stiles ran his hands down Derek’s back, put his hand on Derek’s arm, and put his chin on Derek’s shoulder to watch what Derek was doing. Derek thought about trying that too, but wasn’t sure how well it would be perceived. The two had spent the entire day like that, and were ready to finish the day like that.

In the middle of one of Stiles’ math equations, his phone began playing the theme song from _Cops_. Derek looked up from where he was sprawled on his bed, and raised an eyebrow at Stiles.

“It’s the ringtone for my dad,” Stiles said, grinning at the other boy.

“I figured.”

“It fits okay,” Stiles said and grabbed up his phone and answered it. “Hey dad.”

“Hello Stiles, how are you?”

“I’m great dad, what’s up?”

“Melissa and I were just talking about you, so I figured I would call you and see how college life is treating you.”

“What were you and Mrs. McCall talking about?” Stiles paused, “Never mind, I don’t think I want to know.”

The Sheriff chuckled. “You’re right, you probably don’t.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes, even though he knew his dad wouldn’t be able to see him doing it. He hated it when his dad did that, and he knew his dad did it for that reason. The minute the Sheriff said things like that, Stiles’ brain decided that he wanted to know what his dad was keeping from him, even if in the end he really hadn’t wanted to know.

“I’m not going to tell you Stiles,” The Sheriff said, making Stiles wonder, not for the first time, if his dad could read his mind. “Anyway, so how did the prank go?”

Stiles rolled his eyes at how fast his dad changed the subject. “Great dad, thanks for sending those to me. They really worked out.”

“What exactly did you do?”

“You’re sure you want to know?”

“Yes, Stiles, I definitely want to know, just in case whatever you did happens to be illegal.”

“It wasn’t illegal dad. All I did was put one in the bottom of Derek’s bag and waited until he went somewhere with it. When I thought he would be around someone, I started meowing into the walkie talkie that I had.”

“Of course that was what you thought of doing.” The Sheriff sighed. “At least it wasn’t illegal. How is everything else going?”

Stiles began to tell his dad everything. He told his dad about all of his professors, why he hated some of them and why he loved some of them, he talked about all of the homework he had, and he talked about all the tests he had had and how he was worried about his exams. At one point, the Sheriff asked about Derek, so Stiles told him about how Derek played football, and then went into a detailed recollection of all the pranks he had done so far and why Derek had deserved every single one of them. Through that part of the conversation, Stiles could hear Derek chuckle from where he was studying on his bed, every so often.

“Do you at least like your roommate?” The Sheriff asked, sounding like he suspected that Stiles hated the person that he was living with.

Stiles turned around toward Derek, and smirked slightly. “I can stand living with the guy.”

“I’m glad you don’t hate him.”

“No, I definitely don’t hate him dad.”

Derek picked up on what Stiles and his dad were talking about, and looked up from his textbook. He saw Stiles smirking at him, so he smiled back.

“Son, I’m sure you need to get back to doing your homework,” the Sheriff said, bringing Stiles’ attention back to the conversation. “I just wanted to talk to you about us coming to visit you.”

“Who all is ‘us’?”

“Me, Melissa, Allison, and Scott. Who else would come?”

Stiles shrugged, knowing his dad wouldn’t know that he was doing it. “Yeah, okay.”

“I was thinking we could come up this weekend and all of us could go out to dinner.”

“Okay,” Stiles said.

The minute he said okay, he thought of his and Derek’s conversation. He knew that the minute he saw his dad, he would have to tell him that he didn’t really like girls and now he had a boyfriend. And because his dad wasn’t the only person coming to visit, Stiles would also have to tell Melissa, Allison, and Scott. And he would have to decide how to tell them before this weekend.

“And if Derek wants to come, he can,” Stiles’ dad said.

“Derek will definitely be there.”

After that, the two said their goodbyes, promising to see the other that weekend.

The minute Stiles put his phone back down onto his desk, Derek looked up from his textbook again. “Where will I definitely be?” he asked.

“Dinner with my father, my best friend, his mom, and his girlfriend this weekend.”

…

Stiles chose not to think about the fact that he had to tell his family that he had a boyfriend. He was going to approach this the same way he did with every other problem: wait and hope that it was going to go away. So instead of thinking up some speech, he decided to focus on how he was going to prank Derek this week. Stiles had started to see a pattern in his pranking, that he usually set them up on Friday, and decided that this week he would set it up on Thursday. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but just in case it had a lasting affect like the soap and the hairdryer, it would be safer to do it on Thursday so it wasn’t so close to the dinner with his family.

It took some research again, but eventually Stiles found the perfect prank. He was going to put Kool-Aid and Alka-Seltzer in the shower head so that when Derek got into the shower, the water would be fizzy and red.

Stiles did his usual stop at the grocery store, picking up the Kool-Aid and Alka-Seltzer along with some other things, and then hid those two things under his bed. Derek had a long practice Thursday night because the coach was worried about the game on Friday, so Stiles was going to take advantage of that.

When Derek had left Thursday night, after quickly kissing Stiles’ cheek, Stiles practically dove under his bed. His phone had started going off at the same time, but since he had already been under his bed, he had decided to try to pick it up after he had gotten his hidden goodies.

He hadn’t been able to pick up the phone before the ringing had ended, but when he picked it up he saw that Scott had been the one calling. Stiles decided that it couldn’t be too hard to put his stuff in the shower head so he would just talk to Scott as he was doing it.

“Hey Scotty,” Stiles said, holding his phone in between his shoulder and ear.

“Hi Stiles, what are you doing?”

“Setting up my latest prank.”

“You’re still pranking Derek?”

“Why would I stop?”

“I don’t know. I figured you would give up eventually.”

“I will not give up Scott, you should know better. Did you call about some Allison drama?” Stiles asked, putting the Kool-Aid and Alka-Seltzer down on the bathroom sink. Before continuing his conversation, Stiles put Scott on speaker phone and put his phone down on the bathroom sink too.

Scott sighed. “Of course there is Allison drama. Why can’t our relationship be easy?”

“Because she has psycho parents and you two are in love,” Stiles said, moving the shower curtain back away from the front of the shower.

“Stiles, what exactly are you doing for this prank?”

“Don’t worry Scott. Just tell me about your Allison drama.”

“Seriously Stiles, what are you doing?”

“Putting Kool-Aid and Alka-Seltzer into the shower head.”

“Do you really think you should do that?”

“Yes,” Stiles said, letting out a frustrated sigh, “Just tell me about your Allison drama.”

“Alright fine. If this goes wrong, I knew nothing.”

Scott went on to tell Stiles about his latest adventure against Allison’s parents. Even though the two of them had been dating since their sophomore year in high school, Allison’s parents still didn’t trust Scott to date their daughter. Allison and her family had gone on a vacation recently, and Allison had begged her parents until they had agreed to let Scott come with them. Her mom had acted civil toward Scott the entire trip, but Allison’s dad hadn’t felt inclined to do the same. According to Scott, the man had threatened him with a knife every single time they had sat down to eat. On the last day of the trip, Mr. Argent had spent the entire day trying to get Scott to tell Allison that they couldn’t continue dating. Of course Scott hadn’t even thought about doing that.

While Scott had been going on about the trip, Stiles had taken the head of the shower off and made sure there wasn’t any water in it. After doing that, he had emptied a packet of red Kool-Aid and put a packet of Alka-Seltzer into the shower head. Stiles had gotten the entire prank set up before Scott had finished telling his story.

“I really don’t think I should be anywhere near her parents.”

Stiles grabbed all the papers off of the bathroom sink and threw them away. “Didn’t you say that Mrs. Argent wasn’t too bad?”

“Yeah, but that was probably just because Mr. Argent was doing so well at protecting Allison.”

“Yeah, probably, sorry buddy.”

“Why is this so complicated?”

“You’re the one that had to fall in love with Allison.”

Stiles heard a bang from the other end of the call and figured Scott had just slammed his head against something. “Don’t be too hard on yourself Scott.”

“Do you think they’ll ever warm up to me?”

“Probably not until you die. I’ve got to go study now so I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you Saturday.”

Stiles gulped. “Yeah, uh, Saturday.”

 It wasn’t until a few hours later that Derek came back into the room. It was later than usual because the team hadn’t only had practice but they had also gone out for a team dinner and then ended up back at one of the other teammate’s dorm room, playing video games. Stiles was asleep when Derek walked into the room.

This time, when Derek walked in and kissed Stiles’ forehead, he didn’t feel weird about it. He felt like he could that because they were dating. He didn’t feel like the minute he did it he was going to throw up, or that the entire world was going to end because of his actions. Instead, he just went on to the bathroom to take a shower like he had been planning on.

Before he had gotten in the shower, he had turned it on so it would heat up before he stepped inside. While Derek got undressed, he started hearing a sound that seemed like the water from the shower was fizzing. He pulled the shower curtain back and saw that instead of the clear water cascading from the shower head, a fizzing, red mess was coming out of the shower head. He knew he was going to have to wait until it stopped before getting into the shower.

As he closed the shower curtain again, doing so to make sure the red liquid didn’t get out of the shower, he let out a sigh and muttered, “Really Stiles?”

…

The next morning, Stiles woke up before Derek did. When Stiles had gotten out of bed and put his glasses on to see that Derek was still passed out with his blankets just barely staying on the bed, he had wondered is the apocalypse had finally happened. He had started at Derek for a couple minutes, waiting for the boy to wake up, and only left to go take a shower when he was finally satisfied with the fact that he had just woken up early and zombies weren’t going to start pouring in through the door, trying to turn him into one of their own.

When Stiles finally made it into the bathroom, he turned the light on, closed the door, and put his glasses down on the sink. Before he started to get undressed, Stiles went over to the shower and pulled the curtain back, planning on turning the faucet on to let the water get heated before he got in. With one look into the shower, Stiles ran back into the room, jumping right onto Derek’s bed.

“Oh my God, Derek! Are you hurt? Where are you bleeding?”

Derek woke up, looking up at Stiles with a confused look on his face. “What are you talking about? I’m not hurt anywhere and I’m not bleeding.”

“Were you bleeding when you got back last night?”

“No Stiles, what is this about?”

“The red liquid in the bathroom!” Stiles said, jumping up a little bit.

Derek just started laughing, now knowing exactly what Stiles was talking about.

“Why are you laughing?” Stiles yelled.

Derek patted Stiles’ head, and gently pushed him away. “Go take a shower.”

“Why?”

“The red you saw in the shower? That was because of the prank you pulled yesterday.”

Stiles let out a little chuckle, feeling incredibly stupid. Before he went back into the bathroom, he kissed Derek on the lips, right before the other boy fell back to sleep.


	7. Chapter 7

After the fiasco with Stiles thinking that Derek was dying, the rest of the day went on like normal. The two went on to their morning classes, sitting through lectures that weren’t currently relevant to their degree, and then went on to lunch. Unlike most days, Stiles and Derek went down to the college cafeteria for lunch, each choosing to sit with their friends.

The four sat at a table in the corner of the room, and were usually joined by another group of people that they didn’t know. The seating only worked out because Stiles and his friends only took up the last four seats of the table.

“So you and Derek didn’t decide to get lunch today?” Erica said, smirking like she knew something that the rest of them didn’t.

“No,” Stiles said, piling curly fries into his mouth, “I wanted to come down and eat with you guys.”

“That’s not usual.”

Stiles shrugged and then looked up at Erica instead of his plate. He had a few curly fries in his hand that hadn’t made it to his mouth yet, and pointed them at the girl. “Why are you dressed like that?” he said, only realizing after he said it that he could have worded his sentence a little better.

The girl who was usually in tight black clothing was now in something that Stiles expected Elodie to wear. Instead of her tight shirts that showed off a lot of skin, Erica was wearing a soft-looking white sweater. Instead of a skirt that barely made it down half of her thigh, Erica had on a pair of faded blue jeans. The jeans were tight and held on to every curve, but not like her skirts usually did. Normally, the girl would take time to perfectly curl her long blonde hair, but today she had French braided her long locks, and tied it off with a light pink ribbon. Stiles didn’t think that she looked bad, he thought the complete opposite actually, the outfit just wasn’t what he expected Erica to wear.

Erica only rolled her eyes, knowing that Stiles hadn’t intentionally tried to make that sound like a put down. “I just wanted to today.”

Stiles nodded.

“I asked her the same thing this morning,” Boyd said, wrapping his arm around Erica’s shoulders, “I told her that we love her no matter how she dresses, but she insisted that this was just how she wanted to dress today.”

“I didn’t even know you had clothes like that,” Stiles said.

Erica shrugged. “Looks like I did.”

The four went back to eating, talking about the classes that they had sat through that morning. Most of the talking was complaining, and Stiles and Erica even started fighting with each other, like they usually did, on their differing opinions for everything.

Just as the fighting was starting to get really intense, Stiles felt someone start to push against his shoulder. “Move down,” a gruff, familiar voice said.

Stiles looked at Isaac, giving his friend his best puppy dog eyes, and the other boy just rolled his eyes and moved down a seat. Stiles followed suit and Derek took the seat Stiles had been sitting in. He was now sitting in front of Erica. Erica looked Derek over and then smirked, the same way she had earlier when she had asked Stiles about having lunch with Derek.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Stiles asked.

“No reason,” Erica said, turning to face Stiles dead on, smirking even bigger.

Stiles turned his attention off of Erica and turned to Derek. “Why are you sitting over here?” he asked.

Derek shrugged, taking some of the fries off of Stiles plate.

“All of your friends are at the jock table.”

Derek just shrugged again.

“You didn’t want to sit with them?” Stiles paused, knowing how Derek was going to answer him. “If you shrug again I swear to God.”

Derek shrugged again, a smile pulling at the corners of his lips.

“Why are you over here?”

“Because,”

Before Stiles could say anything, Erica butted in. “The two of you are such a cute couple.”

Derek and Stiles whipped their heads to face her. Derek had his normal blank look on his face, but Stiles’ mouth was hanging wide open.

“Why do you say that? We aren’t dating?”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Don’t lie to me Stiles.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“Boyd, do you think they are dating?”

Boyd nodded.

“What about you Isaac?”

Isaac nodded too.

“Well you guys are wrong,” Stiles said, slight hysteria making its way into his words.

Erica rolled her eyes. “It isn’t a bad thing. I told you, the two of you are a cute couple.”

“What makes you think we are dating though?” Derek asked.

“Well for one, I saw your girlfriend this morning, and she didn’t look like she was too happy.”

Derek, who hadn’t seen Elodie all day, looked at Erica in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“She looks like she just broke up with her boyfriend.”

“And what kind of look is that?”

“You guys don’t know anything about girls do you?” She said, shaking her head a little before starting to list off how Elodie looked. “Well first your girlfriend, or ex-girlfriend I should say, is pretty much known around here for always looking perfect. Her outfit is always perfectly coordinated, her makeup is flawless, and her hair is styled to perfection, not a hair out of place. This morning, when I saw her, she was wearing sweat pants and a sweatshirt.”

“Okay, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Everyone wears that to school at some point,” Derek said, blank look still perfectly placed on his face. Even his words were completely controlled. Stiles was kind of happy that Derek had taken over because if he had been having this conversation, he probably would have been in hysterics and screaming out that he and Derek were dating by now.

Erica rolled her eyes. “Elodie does not wear sweats to school, you should know that. And that wasn’t the only thing. I just told you, her hair is always perfect, and today all she had done was throw it into a ponytail. On a girl like her, a plain ponytail with no bows and no curls is pretty much telling you she didn’t have time to do her hair or she didn’t want to. And her normally flawless makeup? Not even there today. I’ve never once seen her go a day without some sort of makeup on, and she had nothing on today.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at Erica. “Okay, how does this mean anything?”

“That shows she’s upset Derek. And pretty much the only thing that would make her that upset is losing a boyfriend that she’s had for a while. How long did you two date?”

“Three years.”

“Yeah, if you had only been dating a year or less, she might not have had such a problem.” Erica paused, giving Derek a sad look. “It also doesn’t help that you ended the relationship with her and ended up in the arms of a guy.”

“But we aren’t-” Stiles started, that hint of hysteria already back.

“Shut up Stiles, you definitely are.”

“Okay fine,” Derek said, knowing that if he let Stiles try to fight with Erica, it wasn’t going to work in his favor. “You aren’t going to tell anyone are you?”

Erica raised an eyebrow at Derek. Stiles silently wondered how he knew so many people who could do that, but couldn’t do it himself. “Is Stiles not good enough for you to come out for?”

“Erica,” Stiles said, his voice telling her that wasn’t the place to go. “I don’t want to come out to everyone here either.”

Erica huffed out a breath and rolled her eyes. “Fine, whatever. I wasn’t going to tell anyone anyway.”

Derek turned to Stiles, satisfied with how the conversation ended. “Are you coming to the football game tonight?”

…

Stiles didn’t know why he agreed to go to the football game. Actually, he did know, but he didn’t want to admit it. When Derek had looked at him, emotion had suddenly flooded onto his face. The entire time he had been talking to Erica, his blank, guarded look had been there, making sure that Erica couldn’t read too much off of his face, but the moment he looked at Stiles it vanished. Knowing that Derek wasn’t afraid to do that around Stiles made his resolve melt. There was no way he was going to be able to say no to Derek if he continued to do that. Besides, he had gone to some of the games before, and hadn’t been too bored. And this time Erica, Boyd, and Isaac had said they would go too. Going to a home football game to watch his boyfriend play and sitting with his three friends didn’t sound too bad.

He was still going to mentally kick himself for agreeing to go.

Since Derek had to go to the field early, Erica, Boyd, and Isaac had shown up at Stiles’ dorm, planning on all heading to the field together. As Stiles paced, regretting his decision, Erica lay on Stiles’ bed and Boyd and Isaac were both seated on the floor next to Stiles’ bed.

“Stiles, everyone at the school turns out for the football games, why are you freaking out about this?”

“Why shouldn’t I freak out about this?”

“What do you think is even going to happen?”

“I don’t know,” Stiles said, throwing his arms up, “Maybe people are going to figure out we’re dating just like you did.”

Erica rolled her eyes. “People aren’t going to figure it out. I only did because I am capable of putting two and two together, and I know you.”

“Other people know me.”

“Other people didn’t date you.”

“That means nothing.”

“Just sit down and stop freaking out. You’ve been to football games before. It isn’t like people are going to think it’s weird that you’re there. Besides, you’re a student here to, you can go to a football game if you want.”

“This is the first one I’ve gone to where I’m dating one of the players.”

Stiles stepped close to his bed, looking like he was going to sit down on it like Erica said to, but then turned away at the last second. Boyd and Isaac though, weren’t going to let him continue his pacing, so the two of them each grabbed one of Stiles’ legs, making him fall onto his bed.

“Thank you boys,” Erica said, smiling sweetly at Stiles, “Now we’re going to leave in five minutes, so you better calm the hell down.”

Stiles managed to calm down, and they headed to the football field.

When the four of them got there, the football teams had started to warm up.

“See Stiles,” Erica said as they found a place to sit on the bleachers, “We even got here early enough so you can watch your boyfriend work out.”

Erica looked down at the field where the football players were stretching, but Stiles refused to.

“Come on Stiles, he looks great down there in that uniform. Very sexy.”

“No, I’m not looking.”

“No one’s going to figure it out. Everyone watches them stretch Stiles.”

“Well I don’t.”

Erica took Stiles’ face in her hands, pointing his face towards the field. “You will if I have anything to say about it.”

Stiles will swear for the rest of his life that the only reason he started watching the football players down on the field was because Erica forced him to look in that direction and he had caught sight of Derek. He will never admit that he could have just moved his eyes so that he was looking in a different direction.

The minute that Erica let go of Stiles’ face though, he turned his head. She rolled her eyes at his antics, but she didn’t know that he was still watching Derek, just not directly.

“Alright Stiles,” Erica said a few minutes later, “Stop being a baby, the game is starting now.”

Stiles turned back around, already complaining about the fact that they hadn’t thought to get concessions before the game started.

“You were the one that wanted to get seated right away so we could watch your boyfriend.”

“Shut up Erica, that was not how it went.”

“Well I was okay with watching your boyfriend. And the rest of the team of course.”

“Aren’t you and Boyd dating?”

“Yeah, what’s your point?”

The two looked at each other, taking their attention off of what was happening down on the field, both of them having a confused look on their face.

“I told her she could still say things like that,” Boyd said, “I figured she was going to anyway. Especially when they annoy you.”

Erica moved closer to Boyd, wrapping her arm around his and laying her head down on his shoulder. “Thanks for the help honey,” she said, using a sweet tone that Stiles was almost positive he had never heard her use when she was talking to him.

“Alright, can we stop this and turn back to the game?” Isaac asked, sounding annoyed and maybe a little disgusted.

For the next two quarters, the four mainly paid attention to the game. There were moments where players were coming off the field and going back on when the four would turn to each other and talk, and there were other times where there wouldn’t be much going on down on the field when they would talk, but they tried not to talk during the good parts of the game.

From the beginning it looked like it was going to be a good game. Neither team looked like they were definitely going to crush the other team, and that meant there would continue to be things going on down on the field. The visiting team looked like they were bigger than the home team, especially the defensive line. It looked like the boys on the line had been doing some major steroids right before this game. Actually, when Stiles looked, it looked like most of the guys on the team had been doing steroids before the game. Derek had said multiple times that the coach and the rest of the team had been worried about this game for a while, but Stiles had never thought anything about it. He figured that their football team was pretty good, going by the fact that they had won every game in the season so far, and had believed that they would win the same way they had won all of the other games. What Stiles hadn’t taken into account was the size of these guys. Derek had said they were big, but he hadn’t said how big they were exactly.

By half time the visiting team was winning. They had taken in two touchdowns, and gotten both two point conversions they had tried, where the home team had only taken in two touchdowns and had missed both two point conversions. The score was sixteen to twelve.

“Alright, I don’t know about you guys, but I need food. Are you coming or not?” Stiles asked, getting up from the cold bleacher seat.

All three of his friends nodded, standing up and walking to the concessions line with him.

The line for concessions was pretty long, probably holding thirty people already, but Stiles needed food. And he had a twelve minute half time that he could use to get said food.

“At least the team isn’t playing too bad,” Isaac said as the four took their places in line.

Stiles turned to him. “Yeah they’ve all been worried about it and saying shit like they were going to lose. If they believe that then yes they are going to lose.”

 “As long as they do just a little better in the next half, they could definitely pull ahead.”

“And they don’t let the other team wipe the field with their asses.”

“Stiles, you sound like you want them to lose,” Erica said, sounding like she was scolding him.

Stiles shrugged. “Isaac is giving the good side, I’m giving the bad side.”

Erica rolled her eyes at him.

“It’s true.”

Stiles inched forward as the rest of the line inched forward. The guys standing in line in front of Stiles were from the other school. All four of them were dressed head to toe in their school colors and they had their faces painted with their school colors too. Stiles couldn’t help but over hear what they were talking about. He also might have been eavesdropping a little.

“Dude, this other team sucks,” one of the guys said, grin on his face. “We are definitely going to win. They might think that they are giving a good show right now, but there is no way they are going to win.”

“Not with a quarterback like that,” one of the others said.

When Stiles heard this, his eavesdropping intensified. Derek was the quarterback for the home team.

“No,” his friend agreed, “Did you see his passes? If that’s the best he can do, then there is no way his team is going to win. I suggest that they get a new quarterback.”

By this point, Stiles had heard enough, so naturally he gave the guys his two cents. “The team actually just got a new quarterback. This guy is the new one, was recruited by the college because of how good of a quarterback he was in high school, also he’s playing on a scholarship. To be a quarterback. You do understand what a scholarship means right?”

The guys whipped their heads toward Stiles. The guy who had initiated the conversation looked like he was the angriest. “Yes asshole, we do understand what a scholarship is, because all of us play basketball on a scholarship.”

“Well I’ve heard that your school isn’t very good at basketball.”

The guy lunged at Stiles, going in to punch, but two of his buddies grabbed onto his arms.  “We’re better at basketball than you guys are at football,” the guy said, twisting around in his friend’s grip, trying to get away.

“I’m pretty sure you aren’t. If you haven’t noticed, we have a pretty good football team. Maybe we aren’t as good as you guys, but I’m pretty sure there’s some illegal substances being used by some of your guys. And I’ve seen your basketball team’s record. What is it right now? You’ve one a single game in the last two years?”

This time, the guy managed to get out of his friend’s grip, and of course went to punch Stiles. Stiles managed to grab the guys arm before his fist connected with Stiles’ nose, and connected a punch of his own to the guys stomach.

Stiles turned toward his friends. “Why don’t we just go sit back down? We can eat when we go back to our dorms right?”

Stiles got a round of ‘yes’s from his friends, and got to watch Erica glare down the guy that had tried to punch Stiles. He had to admit that he was pretty happy with that.

The bad part about the last half of the game was that the guys from the concessions line had been right. Not about the stuff they had said about Derek, but about how the home team wasn’t going to be able to win. The team played well all the way until the end of the game, but that didn’t seem to matter. Every time the running back was running toward the end zone, one of the giants from the visiting team would come up and crush him. Any time it looked like the play was set up perfectly so that the home team would get a touchdown, someone from the visiting team would show up and ruin it.

At the end of the game the visiting team was leading by three points.

Stiles, Erica, Isaac, and Boyd watched as the teams lined up in the middle of the field and passed by one another, the home team congratulating the visiting team on their win. The visiting team ran from the field, yelling and ready to celebrate, but the home team looked absolutely dejected as they made their way to the locker rooms.

“You guys can head back to your dorms now if you want to,” Stiles said, turning to his friends. “I’m going to wait for Derek, but you guys don’t have to.”

The three others stood up from the bleachers, stretching out their legs.

“No, we will wait with you Stiles. We might as well see Derek to,” Erica said.

The four of them waited for some of the people to clear out. The families going to their cars to drive home, and the students going back to their dorm rooms or somewhere off campus. When most of the people had left, and the football players had started to make their way out of the locker rooms, Stiles, Erica, Isaac, and Boyd moved off of the bleachers and closer to the exit.

When Stiles saw Derek walking toward them, he waved to let Derek know where they were. Derek stopped at a group a little ways away, and Stiles realized that the group of people were Derek’s family. He also realized that Derek should have had to tell his family about them first. He didn’t think he could have made Derek tell his family tonight though. The look on Derek’s face as he talked to his family was probably the most vulnerable and open Stiles had seen the guy. Every emotion he was feeling seemed to be written right across his face.

“Well we finally lost one,” Derek said, walking up to the small group of Stiles and his friends. He had a smile on his face now, but it was obvious it was the type of smile people use when they’re upset and just don’t want people to know.

“It’s alright,” Stiles said, patting Derek on the shoulder, “You guys played a good game.”

“Not good enough.”

“No one is going to blame you guys for losing. That other team consisted of giants.”

The corners of Derek’s lips pulled up a little. “They were pretty big, but everyone is going to blame us.”

“They will not.”

“Yeah they will, everyone thought we were going to win every game this season. That game ruined our winning streak.”

“It’s okay, even if everyone thought you were going to win every game, they can’t be too hard on you.”

“They can actually.”

“This doesn’t mean the rest of the season is shot. It’s one game.”

“One game that we lost.”

“It’s one game.”

In the middle of Stiles and Derek’s bickering, Erica started pulling on Stiles’ sleeve, seeing as it was the only way that she was going to get his attention. “Stiles, we’re going to head off,” she said and then turned to Derek. “You guys played well tonight.”

Derek nodded as a thank you and Erica, Isaac, and Boyd walked off.

“We should probably head back too,” Stiles said.

“Yeah probably.”

The two walked back to their dorm in silence.

When they reached the room, Derek immediately sat down on his bed. “I’m going to go take a shower,” he said.

“Okay,” Stiles said, immediately noticing how Derek did not look at all inclined to move.

Stiles walked over to Derek’s bed and sat down next to Derek. “You played well, and tomorrow you get to meet my family.”

“And you get to tell them we’re going out,” Derek countered.

“Was that group of people you were talking to your family?”

Derek didn’t answer.

“I’m going to assume that you know exactly where I was going with that.” Stiles paused for a moment, letting what he said sink in. “You know, I think I know of something that would make you feel better.”

Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles, but didn’t say anything.

Stiles smirked and motioned between the two of them with one of his hands. “We should make out. A good make out session always makes me feel better.”

Derek stood up, rolling his eyes. He pushed against Stiles’ shoulder as he walked past the boy to get to the bathroom, making Stiles fall back against the bed. “I’m going to take a shower now,” he said.

“Come on Derek, you know you want a piece of this!” Stiles shouted, just as Derek closed the bathroom door.

…

The next morning, Derek was awake before Stiles, just like every other morning. Since the day was Saturday, and neither of them had anything to do until they went to dinner with Stiles’ family that night, Derek decided to leave Stiles sleeping. He sat around for about ten minutes before deciding to go get Stiles some coffee. So he got out of bed and threw on some clothes.

Just off the school’s campus was a small coffee shop where everyone seemed to go to get their coffee. Derek didn’t know why so many students didn’t just bring a coffee maker, and didn’t understand why Stiles hadn’t brought one since he seemed to need coffee to get up properly, but knew the coffee shop must like it. It was just a small place that played an easy listening station quietly in the background and offered free Wi-Fi. There were small tables placed all over the small place, allowing people to come in and sit and drink their coffee.

Derek walked in and ordered two black coffees. While he was waiting one of his teammates walked into the place.

“Hey Derek, you’re up early,” the guy said after ordering his own coffee.

Derek shrugged. “I’m usually up this early.”

“You getting coffee for you and your roommate?”

“Yeah.”

“I heard that your roommate almost got into a fight last night at the game.”

Derek looked at the guy with confusion written all over his face. “What do you mean?”

“I guess there were some guys in the concessions line that were talking shit about our team and your roommate started talking back to them.”

“But you said he almost got into a fight?”

“The guy kept trying to punch him. Your roommate punched the guy in the stomach and then left the line.” The guy looked at Derek, waiting for a sort of reaction. “Alright dude,” he said after a minute, “I’ll see you around.”

The minute the guy left, Derek sent Stiles a text, hoping that the boy would either already be awake and would get it or would wake up and get it.

 _You almost got into a fight?_ Derek sent.

 _Maybe_ Stiles replied a moment later. Derek figured that Stiles had fallen asleep with it in his bed again and had felt the vibration.

_I already heard about it_

_The guy said our team needed a new quarterback_

_Thanks Stiles_

_Are you getting me coffee_

_Yeah I’ll be back in just a few minutes_

Derek didn’t get a reply after that, but that was okay because he was walking onto the campus anyway.

…

It was needless to say that both Derek and Stiles were incredibly nervous for the dinner with Stiles’ family. Derek was especially nervous about meeting Stiles’ father, since he was the Sheriff, and Stiles was nervous about telling them. Stiles knew that he was just going to drag it out and ramble and make it awkward. There was no way that after this Derek could mess up telling his own family.

Erica showed up about half an hour before they were supposed to meet with Stiles’ family. The minute the door opened she said “Show me your clothes.”

Derek had been lying on his bed, scrolling through things on his phone, and Stiles had been pacing the room. Both of them were wearing sweatpants and t-shirts.

“You guys do know that you’re going out to dinner in an hour right?” she asked, seeing what the boys were wearing.

“Of course we do,” Stiles said, “Why do you think I’m pacing?”

“Alright. Are you going to a fancy dinner?”

“We’re going to Olive Garden.”

“Okay, so not too fancy, but not a place where you should wear what you’re wearing.” Erica spun around, looking to see if either of them had gotten an outfit out yet. “Do you guys have outfits planned or are you going to show me where your clothes are?”

“I’m wearing black pants and a black shirt,” Derek said.

“No you are not. Both of you can wear black pants but you are not only wearing black. You are not going to this dinner looking like you are going to a funeral afterwards. What are your other options?”

Stiles shrugged. “I wear the same things all the time, I don’t know my other options.”

Erica rolled her eyes. “Do you still have that wine colored sweater?” she asked.

“Uh yeah.”

“Wear that and your black pants. And wear your nice black shoes.”

“Thanks Erica,” Stiles said and started looking for the clothes she had told him to wear.

Erica turned to Derek. “You have nice, black shoes and black pants right?”

Derek nodded.

“Okay, what are your options for shirts?”

“Uh, I have some button ups.”

“In what colors?”

“Black, green, and purple.”

“Can you be a bit more specific?”

“Why don’t I just get them out.”

Erica sat down on Stiles’ bed as she waited for Derek to get his shirts out. The shirts turned out to be black, olive, and a deep purple.

“Go with the olive one,” Erica told him. “Alright, looks like my work here is done.”

Stiles walked over to her and hugged her. “Thanks.”

“You can thank me better later,” she said and walked right back out.

“That was abrupt,” Derek said, turning to Stiles, holding his clothes over his arm.

“Yeah it was, but hey I know what I’m going to wear now. And we’re right on time since my dad just texted me that they’re waiting outside.”

The two quickly changed into the outfits Erica had told them to wear and quickly walked out to the school parking lot. Stiles had talked to his dad and his dad had said they were traveling to the college in two cars. Scott and Allison would be in one, and the Sheriff and Melissa would be in the other one. Stiles and Derek could ride in either one that they wanted to. When Stiles had asked Derek which car he would rather travel in, Derek told him he wasn’t going to choose since it wasn’t his family. Stiles decided they would go with the adults since he hadn’t talked to his dad ask much as he had talked to Scott.

When the Sheriff and Melissa pulled up to where Derek and Stiles were standing, the Sheriff rolled his window down. “So this is Derek?” he asked.

“Nice to meet you sir,” Derek replied, moving to shake the Sheriff’s hand even though he would have to do so through the open window.

The Sheriff shook Derek’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you too son. Now get in the car, I don’t want anyone to see me with Stiles.”

Stiles made a displeased sound. “You always want to be seen with me.”

“I don’t know what kind of reputation you have gotten yourself here son.”

Stiles rolled his eyes but opened the car door and pushed Derek to get in. Derek moved over to the other side of the car, sitting in the seat behind the Sheriff, and Stiles sat in the one behind Mrs. McCall. “You would want to be seen with me no matter what kind of reputation I had. I am awesome.”

“You keep telling yourself that.”

The rest of the drive to the restaurant had Stiles and his father bickering. They fought about the smallest things, and every time it seemed like the Sheriff was going to win the argument, Stiles brought up his father’s diet. And every time Stiles brought up the Sheriff’s diet, the man rolled his eyes, huffed out a breath, and found something else to fight his son on. There were very few things that Stiles actually let his father win.

While the two bickered, Mrs. McCall decided to make it her mission to talk to Derek. Derek would have been fine listening to the two bicker, especially since the Sheriff kept bringing up bits of stories that Stiles didn't seem to want to share, but wasn't going to be impolite. The woman started by asking Derek questions. Things like: what are you going to school for, how do you know Stiles, and how do you put up with Stiles. The last one would have surprised him if he hadn't  been living with Stiles. Derek told her he was going to school for sports medicine, that he and Stiles were roommates, and he didn't know how he did put up with Stiles. Mrs. McCall had laughed and Stiles had paused his bickering with his father to tell her and Derek that he didn't appreciate the line of conversation. If he hadn't looked at Derek and grinned right after the statement, maybe Derek would have believed him.

Mrs. McCall also told stories though. She told Derek about how Scott and Stiles always used to get in trouble when they were younger. She stressed though that by younger she didn't mean that their trouble ended in elementary or middle school. The two had caused trouble all the way to their senior year of high school.

Right before they all got to the restaurant, Derek got a chance to ask about her. She told him that Scott's dad had left them only a year or so after Stiles' mom had died, and that she had raised her son by herself since. She also told him that since Scott and Stiles had been so close, she had practically helped raise Stiles, and the Sheriff had helped raise Scott. The balance had worked out since Scott didn't have a father figure in his life and Stiles didn't have a mother figure, and her and the Sheriff didn't mind each other's company. Or the fact that sometimes the boys would stay at the other house without saying anything.

"The first few times it happened we were a little worried," she said. "I would call the house to check up on Scott if I was working a late shift at the hospital, and he would be there. Usually he had ended up at the Sheriff's house, and that was okay."

Derek got the feeling from the way that her and the Sheriff looked at each other, and how she talked about the man, they were more than just friends now.

When they arrived at the restaurant, the six people exited their cars and went inside. They were seated and ordering in no time at all.

"So you're Derek?" Scott asked, looking Derek up and down, even though he could only see the top half of him.

"Uh yeah. Why?"

Scott shrugged. "I've heard quite a bit about you."

"Bad things?"

"How you've annoyed the crap out of Stiles."

"Then that's not too bad."

Scott grinned at Derek, telling Derek that that was the right response. Derek was thankful that so far everyone he had met had liked him. He hadn't talked to Allison like he had the others yet, but figured that was okay since the adults seemed to like him. 

"So Derek," the Sheriff said, "Stiles tells me that you're on the football team."

Derek nodded. "I'm actually attending the school on a full ride scholarship for football."

"That's impressive son."

"Thank you sir."

"John, Derek tells me he's studying sports medicine," Mrs. McCall said, putting her hand down on the Sheriff's arm.

"Is that right?" The Sheriff said, raising an eyebrow at Derek. "Why is did you choose that?"

Derek shrugged. "I like helping people and I like sports."

"Two perfect reasons. You do quite a bit of studying?"

"Dad, he's passing all of his classes, what do you think?" Stiles said, butting in. His face was red because of his father’s line of questioning, Derek figured his father had a right to be curious.

"It's okay Stiles," Derek said, wanting to turn and put his hand on Stiles' thigh, but refraining. "Actually sir, I would probably be failing at least one of my classes if Stiles wasn't my roommate."

The Sheriff raised an eyebrow at Derek. "How so?"

"He helps me study a lot."

Out of the corner of his eye, Derek could see Stiles fidgeting in his seat. Derek would bet anything that Stiles was blushing.

"Well that's nice if him."

The attention was taken off of Derek when Mrs. McCall started talking to Scott. Everyone started talking all at once about everything that was going on in their lives. Stiles was asking Scott about how college was going for him, and Allison had asked Mrs. McCall and the Sheriff about what was going on in Beacon Hills. Derek was content to listen to everyone talk, and watch how they all interacted with each other.

"You're not too embarrassed with this?" Stiles asked Derek after Scott had turned and started talking to Allison.

"No, the conversation would probably be worse if he knew," Derek said, making sure to give Stiles a pointed look.

Stiles put his hands up in surrender. "I know, I should probably tell them."

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Scared?"

"Not necessarily."

"Then tell them after we eat."

"Fine, Mr. Bossy Pants."

The group’s conversation mainly ended when their food was brought out. They still talked, but not as much. Stiles kept talking around the food in his mouth, and his dad kept telling him to stop talking. Whether it was because of the food or because he really wanted his son to stop talking, Derek couldn't tell.

When everyone's plate was either clean or almost clean, Stiles looked over at Derek, silently communicating that he was going to tell everyone at the table.

Stiles cleared his throat. "Um, I need to tell you guys something."

Scott looked at his friend and smiled. Stiles had forgotten that Scott already knew. That was a weight off of his chest.

"So Derek and I are roommates," he said, earning looks from his family that told him he needed to keep going if that wasn't all. "But we aren't only roommates."

"What are you then?" The Sheriff asked.

"We're dating."

The Sheriff nodded, acting like he already knew that, and Mrs. McCall, Allison, and Scott were smiling at Stiles. 

"As long as you're happy dude," Scott said.

The Sheriff turned to Derek, a serious look on his face. "I don't care if you're young and on the football team, I have a gun and I will use it."

Derek nodded, trying desperately to keep the fact that that threat did actually scare him a bit off of his face.

"I won't hurt him sir."

"You better not."

Stiles' face was completely red, and he felt like it was going to combust any moment. "Okay dad, you don't need to threaten my boyfriend anymore."

"I sure as hell do."

Stiles looked at Derek, expecting a panicked look, but Derek looked mainly like he was ready to take what the Sheriff was going to say. There was a little fear, but that was to be expected. As long as he was ready to take anything, because he knew it would make the Sheriff feel better about him dating his son, than Stiles was happy. Stiles could help but smile a happy, and reassuring, smile at Derek. Derek smiled back.

…

The day after the dinner with Stiles' family, Stiles knew it was time to do another prank. He had already had this one picked out, and had even gone out to get what he needed for it ahead of time. This prank wasn't going to have a lasting affect like some of the others, and it might not even annoy Derek as much as the others did. This prank was simple, and had been done before by many different people, in different ways, and even depicted on TV shows. All Stiles was going to do this time was fill a bucket with a blue gooey substance, and put it on top of the dorm room door. Then when Derek walked into the room, probably telling Stiles off for leaving the door open _again_ , the goo would cover Derek, starting from the top of his head and running down his face onto his chest and shoulders and moving down in thin lines to drop down onto the floor. Stiles had also prepared to have a major clean up. 

Since it was Sunday, there weren't going to be many chances for Stiles to pull the prank. He would have to take any time given to him; any time that Derek left the room. He would also have to hope that Derek was gone long enough for him to mix up the goo. 

Around lunch time, Stiles convinced Derek to go get him some fast food. The fast food place wasn't very far away from the school, but Stiles had asked him to go to the most popular fast food restaurant in the area, and he had asked his roommate to go get the food at the same time almost everyone else would be going. The normal ten to fifteen minute adventure would easily become a twenty five to thirty minute adventure. 

Stiles set to work the moment Derek had left the room. 

Stiles went into the bathroom, feeling thankful once again that he didn't have a communal bathroom, carrying a bucket, a large bottle of white glue, a cup full of liquid starch, and a bottle of blue food coloring. Stiles put the bucket into the sink, just in case he spilled something. The first thing he had to do was get all of the glue out of the glue bottle, and into the bucket. Stiles squeezed everything out that he could, and then ran hot water into the glue bottle. The hot water loosened the remaining glue, and when Stiles poured the liquid into the bucket, nearly all of the glue was out of the bottle. Next, Stiles poured the liquid cornstarch into his bucket of glue. He stirred the mixture until he figured it was mixed enough, and then added multiple drops of the blue food coloring. 

 _How close are you to coming back?_ Stiles texted Derek, wanting to know how long he had to get the bucket above the door. 

_I'll be back in about ten_

As soon as Stiles got the reply, he grabbed his bucket out of the sink and took it into the room. He took the chair from his desk and climbed on top of it, carefully balancing so that he could place the bucket on top of the slightly open door. 

Immediately after, Stiles lay down on his bed and started scrolling through things on his phone. He wanted to look as innocent as possible, even though he knew he would come close to wetting his pants the minute the goo fell on top of Derek's head. 

Ten minute later, just like Derek said, the door opened. Derek had left the room wearing an old, faded T-shirt that had the logo from his high school on it, and a pair of jeans. 

"Stiles, how many times am I going to have to tell you to close the damn door?" Derek asked, closing the door behind him. 

The minute the door closed, the bucket fell off of the ledge. The bucket fell to the right of Derek, but the goo fell right on his head. The blue substance first landed on the top of his skull, and the started to run down his face. Stiles was trying hard not to laugh, but soon found himself falling off the side of his bed, rolling right into the floor. 

Derek put the bag of food down on the desk and stalked toward Stiles' rolling form. He wiped at his eyes to get the goo away so he could see. He got down onto the floor, straddling Stiles and pinning his arms above his head. The laughing boy was still cracking up, trying to roll around and not being able to. Derek shook his head, making it so that the goo that was on his hair flung all over, mainly hitting Stiles right in the face. 

"Derek, oh my god," Stiles said between fits of laughter, "Why did you do that?"

"Why did you do this?"

"The look," Stiles gasped in a breath of air, "On your face."

Derek held Stiles under his body until the boy stopped struggling and stopped laughing. When Stiles took in a deep breath, Derek raised an eyebrow at him. "That was such a lame prank."

"It doesn't matter, I still got you."

Derek leaned down, putting his face right up in front of Stiles' so that the two of them were breathing the same air. "Yeah, I guess you did," he said and then moved forward the few centimeters that were between his and Stiles' mouths. 

The two of them kissed until they couldn't breathe anymore and had to pull away. 

"Y'know, I still think my grandmother could do better pranks than you," Derek said quietly and then rubbed his head against Stiles' face, quickly jumping up and running as far away from Stiles as possible. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe this is the last chapter to this story. I want to thank all of you that have read it or commented, left kudos, or subscribed. Every single one of those things made me so happy so thanks guys.
> 
> p.s. I have a [Tumblr](http://13luckystars.tumblr.com/) if you would like to check that out :)


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